


The Purple Haired Craze

by LeoraPhthalo



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: 1600s Magic School, China bashing, F/F, F/M, Ghastly and Skulduggery's parents are way too hospitable and caring, M/M, Multi, Saracen has abusive parents (not really mentioned), Teen Pregnancy, Time Travel, but mostly fluffles, everyone except Erskine lives with Ghastly and Skulduggery's families, orphan!Anton, orphan!Dexter, some non-con, supercoolawesome!Valkyrie, teen!Dead Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-02 03:59:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 37
Words: 40,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4045096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoraPhthalo/pseuds/LeoraPhthalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valkyrie is taken back to the 1600s by a purple girl who happens to be able to Time Travel. Posing as cousins, they integrate themselves into Ende Academy, a school for young mages and so commences the epic tale of awesomeness.<br/>-- DISCONTINUED (but will be re-written properly when I have some time XD)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which A Time Traveller Is Discovered

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfiction I ever posted online, and I am pleased to announce it was literally the best choice of my sorry little life so far! So, for your information, this fanfic is also on fanfiction.net (under JellyfishSisters) and Wattpad (under leoraphthalo).  
> Warning: The first couple of chapters are not great. My writing style improves as you read on, so bare with me for the first few slightly sloppily written chapters. It does get much better.

It was clear to all mages who were working at the Sanctuary on October the twelfth that Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain were not in good moods. Generally, even if they were in one of their better moods, most employees would still go out of their way to avoid them if possible. If they were severely annoyed, this unspoken rule about not getting in their way was doubly important to follow. There was no knowing what could happen to the unwitting stragglers that ended up in their line of path.  
As it was, the loud hustle and bustle of the Sanctuary was immediately silenced that morning when Detectives Pleasant and Cain swept down the long corridors that were filled with tension towards the Grand Mage's office.  
The less notable employees wondered what was wrong. Those higher up in the Sanctuary didn't want to wonder about what could have happened. If it had got the Irish Sanctuary's top detectives vexed, then it was very likely to be something pretty bad.

Valkyrie stalked into Erskine Ravel's office directly behind her partner and best friend. The Grand Mage took one look at Skulduggery's taut and rigid stance and her own furrowed expression before he speed dialled Ghastly Bespoke.  
"Sit yourselves down then," he told them.  
They sat in an awkward and tense silence, waiting impatiently for Ghastly's arrival.  
They didn't need to wait long. They heard the scarred tailor's heavy footfalls before he burst into the room.  
"What is today's emergency then?" he asked.  
Skulduggery gave him a look (not easy to do when you don't have a face, but he managed). "We found the person who is responsible for all these people who are randomly disappearing. Apparently her name is Iyzebel Trix and she is a time traveller and has been sending all these people into the past, or even the future."  
Ghastly frowned. "I swear time travellers didn't exist."  
"So did we, until we talked to Gordon about it," Valkyrie put in. "There aren't that many out there and most the time they aren't even in our time period. According to him, it is a derivative of dimension shunting, but slightly more useful. Even so, very few people from our time have picked up the discipline, which is why we thought it didn't exist."  
"There are many laws on the discipline, which does make it not as desirable as a skill. One of the main rules is that taking other people into a different time frame is illegal, particularly mortals, and making contact with people in other times is also restricted due to the problem of creating paradoxes altering things."  
Erskine stood. "Well then, you two had better get going. I couldn't see anyone doing a better job on this case than you two anyway, so unless something more world changing occurs, you can continue with this one. Arrest Iyzebel Trix. Then we can figure out how to rescue the stranded people."  
Valkyrie gave a sharp nod, also standing. "Come on then Skul, we've got work to do."  
Skulduggery tilted his head towards her and remained seated. "Go to the Bentley, Val. I need to talk to Erskine and Ghastly for a moment. I won't be long."  
She arched an eyebrow, puzzled at Skul's request. He hardly ever kept anything secret from her, let alone share the secret with Ghastly and Erskine. Either the secret was one she knew, or something that no one knew.  
But, then again, it could just be something to do with guy stuff. She decided to let it lie.

"Are you sure," asked Ghastly, a horrified expression across his face. "But that means…"  
"If my theory is correct and what I fear will happen does," Skulduggery told them, "then yes, Valkyrie is going to die."  
"Erskine swore loudly. "That ain't good."  
Deep down, Ghastly really couldn't see how this was ever going to be avoided without a drastic change to the world today. The reason Skulduggery was a skeleton was due to the fact that Valkyrie existed. There really was nothing that the skeleton could do to protect his beautiful partner-in-crime now. They had already had many close calls with death together and she, miraculously always survived.  
Then again, her death day had not been any of those close shaves. She had a death that seemed to be set in stone. There wasn't anything that Skulduggery could do.  
They could still try. "Skul, you have to keep an eye on her. Stay within close proximity of her at all times- that shouldn't be too difficult, until Trix is captured."  
Skulduggery nodded sharply. The skeleton would have done so anyway without his order. With a nod from Erskine, Detective Pleasant was dismissed. As soon as their friend was out of earshot, Ghastly turned to Erskine.  
"He isn't going to be able to stop this, you know."  
"I know. But he can fool himself by pretending he can. We can't tell him otherwise."  
I warned him, when he first met Val. He shouldn't have shown her magic in the first place.  
"She would have found her way in sooner or later," Erskine told him. "Even without Skul's help. Although it will be hard on him and her."  
The two mages sat there in silence at this last thought.


	2. In Which A Trip To China Is Required

Valkyrie gave Skulduggery a quizzical look as he finally sat himself down in the driver's seat of the Bentley. He ignored her and switched on the engine, the quiet purr barely disrupting the silence.  
"So are you going to tell me what that was about?" she asked after they had driven for a while.  
"Nope."  
"And why not?"  
"Don't have to."  
Val frowned. "Yes, you do. We are partners. We tell each other everything."  
Skul glanced at her quickly before returning his eyes to the road. "No, we don't. There are still plenty of things that I haven't told you about yet."  
"Yes, but that's probably because it hasn't occurred to you that you haven't mentioned said things you are keeping from me. This you are purposely keeping away from me."  
"Ah, well. I have my reasons."  
She felt like glaring at him, or screaming in frustration. She hated not knowing things, absolutely hated it but she also knew that if Skulduggery did not want to tell her, she wouldn't know until he wanted her too. She curbed her anger and pulled it down to a bad mood.  
Skul picked up on her temper and didn't try to initiate a conversation. She just wouldn't reply. They pulled up in front of China's library and got out swiftly, the tension hanging in the air between them.

China had been sitting, reading a very interesting diary written by a woman known as Juno Flight, who was the founder of the Adept discipline of shunting. Flight, according to extra research on the woman that China had found, was the only know person who could shunt in all manners; dimension, time and place. China had just reached this interesting section in which Flight had begun to describe her hopelessly romantic love affair with her husband's younger sister when Valkyrie and Skulduggery almost stormed into her domain. She noted the tension between the Sanctuary's top detectives as soon as they stepped through her door.  
"Good Afternoon," she said, calmly placing the delicate book on the desk beside her, taking note of the page number. "What do you two need today?"  
"Have you heard about a time traveller called Iyzebel Trix?" Skulduggery asked her, sharply in his no-nonsense voice. "Any rumours or stories?"  
China's eyes flickered towards his dark-haired partner. Valkyrie was trying her best to ignore her partner, her eyes darting all over the place except in Skulduggery's direction. "You two had a fight?" she asked, curious as to what would make them argue.  
"Answer my question."  
She sighed. "Yes, as a matter of fact. She is mentioned in this diary here." China waved the little battered book at them. "She was involved romantically with a woman called Juno Flight, who was the first of the Shunters."  
Val raised an eyebrow. "What discipline did Juno have?"  
"She, apparently, was the only person who could teleport, shunt dimensions and time travel. She taught her husband's younger sisters, Iyzebel and another girl, a bit younger, as a favour for him and then had an affair with Trix."  
"Where is Juno now?" Skulduggery asked.  
"Dead, I believe, or in a different time or dimension. I did a bit of research on the woman as I felt that she was a notable person in history. According to records, she vanished one day, along with Iyzebel and neither of them has been seen since. This was about fifty years ago, in the 1950s or 60s from what I've gathered."  
"What about this younger sister and husband?"  
"The husband was called Lucas Nile, an unexceptional Elemental who got caught in a train accident and killed in the 1920s. The other sister appears to have no records."  
Skulduggery tilted his head, as if puzzled. "You have no other information about Trix?"  
"Other than the fact that she has been wrecking havoc around Dublin, but then again, you already know that."  
"Yes. Well, thank you for your help." Skulduggery gave her a nod and made to sweep out of the room.  
"Wait, Val, can I talk to you?" Valkyrie turned round in slight surprise to face her. Skulduggery gave a nod as if to say he would wait in the car. They waited until they couldn't hear his footsteps anymore. "What happened?" China asked.  
Valkyrie gave a small sigh. "He is keeping something from me. About this investigation if I'm looking at this right."  
"And you two had a fight because he doesn't want to tell you this thing and yet you don't like not knowing."  
She nodded.  
China gave her a sad look. She knew what Skulduggery was trying to hide and she knew she couldn't tell Valkyrie about this and neither could Skul, even if they wanted to. She tried to think what would be best to say to the girl who was looking like a sad puppy.  
"Bear with him. He doesn't ever want to mean you any harm. He is your friend after all and while it sometimes seems like he doesn't trust you, he really does. There are always going to be things, though, that he needs time before he tells you." Val looked up at her, eyes shining. China gave her a hug. "Don't worry. He'll get round to telling you soon."


	3. In Which Valkyrie Holds A Grudge

Skulduggery didn't apologise to her but Valkyrie managed to overlook it. If they wanted to solve this mystery, then they had to work together and that meant no grudges. It still was a struggle for her to forgive him, but to forget about it until they had finished the case, she could manage.  
They had tracked Iyzebel Trix to area around Temple Bar where she had been picking up her various victims. Skulduggery parked the Bentley up in an alley where it was unlikely to get disturbed and they got out and proceeded to check out the scenes of which the disappearances occurred.  
The first was very close to Finbar's tattoo parlour. Valkyrie sketched out the area into her little notebook that Fergus and Beryl had got for her last birthday (she was mightly surprised to find that it was not pink or sparkly or ridiculously impractical) and marked a cross where the first crime scene was. As they walked from scene to scene, a pattern began appear.  
"Uh, Skul?"  
"Mm?  
"Look." She shoved the rough drawing in his face (or skull) and he frowned as he studied the sketch. It was an almost perfect circle around a point that Val had circled. Skulduggery gave her one look and then they both set off in the direction of the area they guessed.  
They ended up on Cecilia Street, one of the quieter areas of Temple Bar, the perfect place to be able to appear suddenly with the likelihood of being noticed very unlikely. One of the shops was empty; the To Let sign was stuck to the side of the wall, and it had a large porch. Only by standing directly in front of the entrance would you be able to notice someone spontaneously appearing there, and the chance of this happening was minute.  
"When is her next attack due in comparison to the other kidnappings?" Valkyrie asked as Skulduggery whipped out his phone.  
"Within the next twelve hours, from what we have deduced," he replied, before rapidly texting Ghastly and Erskine. There was a pause as they waited for the reply, and then Skulduggery was walking back down the road, Valkyrie jogging after him. "Reinforcements will be here within fifteen minutes. They'll take over for a bit so we might as well go for a quick coffee."  
Val frowned. "Shouldn't we be keeping an eye on the area in case she shows up?"  
"They already have control of the surveillance in the area, and they now know where to look so they can keep track of her if she shows up before we are expecting her. In the meantime, however, you require some lunch."  
He led her into a rundown building that was just a corner away from the busy part of Temple Bar. Once inside, the place seemed to transform before her very eyes, not surprisingly, but still something that she was still trying to get used to.  
So many strange people were sitting around the bar, people with only one eye or misshapen noses or even bizarrely coloured skin. Valkyrie noted one woman, who was hidden in a corner, had a light purple complexion, which was really rather becoming.  
Skulduggery retracted the façade and proceeded to the counter, managing to order a pasty and chips for Valkyrie. Sitting up at the main bar was an odd experience for the girl; she had only just come of age and therefore had never before been allowed to sit at the bar.  
"Are you okay?" he asked her.  
Valkyrie held in the temptation to throw him a dirty look in annoyance and plastered on a smile. "Yeah, I'm fine."

The plan that Skulduggery had to capture Trix worked perfectly, despite Valkyrie's doubt. In her head, she thought it would be easy enough for Trix to simply teleport away, but it seemed that teleportation through time was not as quick as teleportation through space.  
The Cleavers really did the majority of the work; Skulduggery and Val only tipped them off to her teleportation location and then did the formalities to the official arrest. Trix was taken completely off guard and the Cleavers got the handcuffs on her almost immediately.  
They drove back to the Sanctuary in the Bentley in another awkward silence. Skulduggery seemed to recognise that despite saying otherwise, Valkyrie was not happy with him.  
Skulduggery, despite having taken Trix into custody, was still on edge. At the back of his head, he knew Valkyrie was still in danger, even though the only person that was capable of doing that was currently in the back of a fake Garda van on her way to Sanctuary where she would stay for a long time.  
He tried to ignore the persistent thoughts at the back of his head telling him it was not alright and things were not solved just because they had caught the only time traveller that they had ever met. He knew that Valkyrie would get taken from him, despite his efforts.  
Then again, if he tried to stop what was already written in history, he would probably cause the world a great deal of problems.  
Damn time travel.  
He gave in their report on the arrest to Erskine, Ghastly and Madame Mist, Val still not having uttered a word to him since lunchtime save the occasional comments about the case.  
"We still have yet to locate the kidnapped people, but we figure that if we question Trix we might gain some information on them," he told the three elders.  
"We'll get people on her case." Erskine told him. "You two need a break before you go back to this case, I think."  
Skulduggery cocked his head, looking at Ravel, puzzled. Erskine gave him the eyebrows back and Skul realised this would be a chance to get back on good terms with Valkyrie.  
Most days, he would have dismissed Valkyrie's strops and ignored her until she cheered up, but this time he didn't think the same tactics would work. He nodded to Erskine and Ghastly, tipped his hat towards Madame Mist and swept out of the room, Val following close behind, but still mute.  
"Do you want to come back to mine?" he asked her as they drove out of Roarhaven.  
Val shook her head and Skulduggery felt his heart sink.  
"I'll take you home then," he said, trying not to let any emotion into his voice.  
"Not home. Gordon's place," she said, quietly. Skulduggery nodded and they both fell into silence again.  
It wasn't long before Valkyrie was out of the car, without acknowledging him properly, and he watched her jog to the house and rise gently up to her first floor bedroom window. He held in the desire to wait out here for a while before creeping up to her window to apologise. Whilst the method worked frequently as a peacemaker, this time he felt like he needed to give her some space. He took one last look at the dark house before turning the car around to leave.


	4. In Which A Purple Girl Breaks In

Valkyrie had been at Gordon's for two days without talking to anyone. She had been sleeping when Livena Estrange broke into her house.  
She was lying on the four-poster in her bedroom at Gordon's as the shadowy figure walked up to the edge of her bed and leapt forward to press a gloved hand over the girl's mouth.  
Valkyrie sat up sharply, her scream muffled by the stranger.  
"Hush, I'm not going to hurt you!" the person said, clearly a female. Val gave a suspicious glance at the girl and she reached over to switch on her side light, noting that it was only nine in the evening.  
The most unusual thing about the girl was that she looked exactly like Iyzebel Trix except that she had a lavender complexion and her hair was a dark purple, frizzy, but long enough to just about tame into a braid that circled the crown of her head. Valkyrie was positive that she had seen the girl before somewhere, quite recently. She watched as the short, but slim girl wandered around the room, taking a peek out of the window before going back to the bed, where Valkyrie had sat up. She was wearing odd clothes, all a dull brown.  
"You were at the bar!" exclaimed Valkyrie, as she finally recognised where she had seen the person last.  
The girl smiled. "That's right. My name is Livena Estrange, but you can call me Liv. You imprisoned my sister, Izzy, but that's not why I'm here. I'm here to help you. Well, not exactly you, but I'm here to help." The girl looked fairly relaxed, but the way she spoke reminded Val of the time when Tanith had tried a coca cola and sprite mixture with fizzy sweets on top of that. It had taken Ghastly, Skulduggery and Val more than two hours to calm her down and her speech was still too quick to comprehend.  
Whilst the girl didn't seem to be threatening, she sent a quick text to Skulduggery, the first time she had contacted him in over forty-eight hours, as Livena's back had been turned telling him to get over to Gordon's. She knew he would be approximately ten minutes from the minute he got the text, so she just had to keep this girl talking for sometime. Then they could try and question her together.  
"Why are you here? You've not exactly been very clear."  
"You have to go back in time."  
"Say what?" This had not been the answer that Val had been expecting. "Isn't that illegal?"  
"Not if it doesn't have an impact on the course of history. In fact, you need to get to the 1600s so that history does not change. You are a keystone in this world and if you do not exist at the right moment, everything and everyone you know and love will either change or disappear."  
Valkyrie gave her a look of light disbelief, but before she could object, Liv had grabbed her arm and there was a flash.  
The keep-her-talking plan had not worked.

Valkyrie found herself in a barn, changing into clothes that were identical to Liv's.  
"We are going to Ende Academy for Young Mages," she told Val. "This is the school uniform. Kind of plain, but we don't want to stand out in any way to the mortals. It is bad enough that the girls are permitted to wear trousers."  
Val struggled with the breast bindings. They were painful, despite being practical and more appropriate considering the time. She fixed it into place and pulled the tunic over her head.  
Liv helped Valkyrie pin up her hair into the same style that she was wearing. "The headmaster's ultimate goal in life is to make everyone equal so uniform is necessary. Hair must be done up like this every day."  
"Yeah, well it's not exactly flattering."  
"It's not the point of the uniform."  
"Right," Val muttered, still slightly annoyed with the girl. She was trying to take everything in her stride, but she was beginning to miss her friends, particularly Skulduggery, even though she was still angry at him. She wasn't sure how long she was going to be in this era, but it would definitely be a while for her.  
"We are cousins, okay? I can explain the skin tone and everything. I have enrolled us in and we need to get there before ten o'clock."  
"Okay."  
Liv handed her a small suitcase. "It has extra changes of the school uniform, leather arm and leg guards for our fighting lessons, winter clothing for when it gets cold and a nightgown."  
It didn't take long to jog up the hill towards a huge, but very weather worn mansion. A light drizzle had begun, the sort of one that dusted everything in a coat of water, but didn't soak through your clothes. When they got close enough to the building, writing appeared over the wooden doorway.  
Ende Academy for Young Mages  
Val presumed that it would only be only visible to mages and she watched as the mansion began to repair itself, the broken and unlit windows suddenly becoming lit and fixed.  
Liv walked up to the front door and knocked loudly. It was answered promptly by a woman with bright red hair that was pulled into a bun. She didn't look that much older than Liv, but had an air of authority about her that allowed people to recognise that she was not a student.  
"You must be the new students," she said, not unkindly, but she had a brief way about her.  
"I guess," Liv said as the two girls stepped into the building, brushing off the water that had built up on the fabric of their cloaks.  
"My name is Renne Crow, wife of the headmaster, Hamish Noone. Please sit. He will be with you two shortly."  
True to her word, the headmaster appeared through a door.  
"We haven't had new students for a while now," Noone stated as he led them into his study. "We are glad to offer the both of you places within our community, although we need to go over the formalities."  
Hamish Noone was a friendly man, looking to be in his late twenties. He had strawberry blond hair, but hazel coloured eyes. Looking around the study, Valkyrie gathered that he was interested in biology and natural sciences, noting the large tomes with titles like "Frogs and their Habits" and "The Theory of the Swan". Very few were likely to be scientifically accurate and she felt kind of sorry for the innocence that these people held when it came to the world around them. Even she knew, despite not having been to school in person in over six months (Skulduggery had still forced her to go to school when there was little work for them to do), vaguely how the world worked.  
"You would be Miss Estrange, correct?" he asked, addressing Liv.  
Liv nodded.  
"Therefore you must be Miss Cain."  
"Yes," Valkyrie told him.  
"What are your disciplines?"  
"Symbol magic," Liv stated calmly, without hesitation.  
"Elemental," replied Valkyrie, not bothering to go into details about the necromancy. She had left her ring on her bedside table back in her time anyway.  
"Thank you," he said, scribbling down the information into a file. "All information concerning you two will go down in file. All your exams results, achievements and concerns that you gain will end up in here. Understand?"  
They nodded.  
"Good. Concerning your rooming arrangements, do either of you girls have an objection with being roomed with a boy?"  
"No, sir," they said, simultaneously.  
"Ah, good. I am trying to make a stand against gender inequality," he explained. "This is my way of getting girls and boys to be more understanding towards the opposite gender in the school community. No problems there then?"  
"No, sir."  
"Good. Here are your timetables," he said, handing them both a sheet of paper. "I'll take you to your new rooms."


	5. In Which Skulduggery Has Changed

Liv's room came first. She was roomed together with a boy about the same age as the two of them called Topher Kessel in room number four twenty. He seemed friendly enough and welcomed Liv in well. The purple enigma gave Val an encouraging smile before she was dragged off to her new room by Noone.  
"You are sharing a room with Skulduggery Pleasant," Noone told her as he led her a few doors down the hallway.  
Valkyrie froze up. "Who?" she said, disbelieving.  
"Skulduggery Pleasant," Noone repeated, giving Val an odd look. "He is going to be the school's head boy next year. Well, I shouldn't have told you that because we are struggling to find a suitable head girl for the position. Don't tell him, please."  
"I won't." Val managed to get her act back together and began following again. "Why are you having problems with the girls?"  
Noone gave a sigh. "None of them seem to be right. Most of them took up the opportunity to go for the position because everyone knew Pleasant was definitely going to get the place. The ones that didn't go because of Pleasant cannot do public speaking. We are casting another vote in a month, if you want to go for the position. You seem to be a good candidate."  
"Maybe."  
Noone stopped outside room number four three two, twelve doors down from Liv's room. He pulled out a key from one of his many pockets and put it in the lock. The door swung open easily and Noone handed Valkyrie the key.  
"Keep it someplace safe. We are not made of spares."  
She nodded and stepped inside.  
There, lying draped on the bed was the teenage, human Skulduggery Pleasant. He looked up to get a view from the intruder.  
He was gorgeous.  
He had light brown hair that sat perfectly on his well structured face. His intense green eyes were trained on her.  
"And she is…?"  
"Your new room partner," Noone stated briskly. "She is an elemental. Please ensure that she gets to all lessons without getting lost; she is in all your lessons."  
"Of course, sir." His eyes never left her as he sat up to pick up the books that scattered the floor in a lazy attempt to clear up the floor. Valkyrie barely noted the departure of Noone. She was still trying to unfreeze herself from the shock of seeing Skulduggery alive.  
"Look, I know I'm gorgeous, but you really don't have to keep staring at me."  
She quickly pulled herself together. "Says you! You've barely taken your eyes off me!" She walked with a confident air to the empty bed, trying not to look directly at his eyes as if he would be able to see right through her.  
"So, what is your name, gorgeous? Noone didn't take the time to introduce you."  
"Valkyrie Cain," she told him, refusing to let emotion creep onto her face. It was bad enough that she flushed furiously when she got embarrassed.  
"Nice choice," he commented. She heard him stand and then suddenly he was behind her. "Means that you are not only gorgeous, but trouble."  
He was way too close. Just because she liked him did not mean that he had to find out immediately, particularly in this era. It would feel like she would be betraying the Skulduggery she knew and loved. She shut her eyes, calmed herself down and gain control of the blush before she turned and gave him a withering glare, trying to restrain the need to punch him.  
"If this is your general attitude towards girls, I can understand why you didn't have a roommate."  
Skulduggery frowned. "Most of the girls in this school would throw themselves at me if I spoke to them in that way. Actually," he corrected himself, "most do without me even opening my mouth."  
"I'm not most girls." Val quickly finished shoving the rest of her clothes that Liv had given her into her drawer. She walked away from Skulduggery, snatching up the nightgown that she had been given.  
"Is there someplace where I can change without an audience?"  
"Bathroom," he told her, sullen, pointing to the door positioned between the two beds.  
She stalked into the bathroom, ensuring the door was slammed loudly behind her.

Gods, she was feisty! thought Skulduggery to himself. He grabbed hold of his own night clothes, a pair of boxer shorts and a vest, which he generally wouldn't wear in bed during the late summer months, but felt was necessary in the presence of such a fine woman to be somewhat modest.  
A girl who didn't want to go out with him the second she clapped her eyes on him, let alone kiss him.  
In a sense, it made him like her all the more. The situation had never happened before in his life. He had kissed pretty much every single girl in the school, been out with all the hot girls with the exception of the ones that Ghastly liked (he had a habit of being possessive). He, Dexter, Erskine and Saracen were all right old players.  
He pulled on his night clothes and flopped onto his bed and watched as Valkyrie left the bathroom. The nightgown flowed around her and yet managed to accent all her curves that she possessed.  
And her hair!  
She had let her hair down and it fell loose, thick and curled slightly at the tips, falling over her shoulder in a picturesque way that he was tempted to grab his sketchbook and draw the image. Her hair and eyes contrasted in such a way with her pale skin and white nightgown that she could be mistaken for something otherworldly. Her beauty exceeded even China Sorrows' and that was saying something.  
He prayed that he could try and keep her from his other friends prying eyes. He watched her as she threw him a small glare and got herself into her bed, turning her back to him.


	6. In Which The Dead Men Flirt

It was a Saturday.  
Valkyrie woke suddenly, initially not recognising her surroundings. She looked sharply at the other bed and noted the boy lying there, snoring heavily, and then the events of the day before hit her.  
She sat up, dragging herself out of her warm bed and grabbed the brown uniform that she had left at the foot of her bed. Checking that Skulduggery was still in a deep sleep, she stripped of her nightgown and quickly dragged the tunic over her head.  
Stepping into the bathroom, she glared at her long hair that was reflected by the mirror. She had no idea on how to put it up. She was able to braid her hair, but not neatly and was definitely not skilled enough to pin it up. She growled as her fourth attempt proved unsuccessful.  
"You okay?" came a voice from the door.  
Val jumped. Skulduggery, with a very amused expression on his face, was standing there, his frame filling the doorway. "I'm fine," she muttered and turned her attentions back to her locks.  
"I can put up hair, you know," he stated. She turned around, a surprised look on her face. "I could do it for you."  
She was tempted to refuse, but that would look a bit stubborn on her behalf. "Sure," she said, dropping her hands to her sides.  
He moved into the bathroom with grace and Valkyrie watched the reflection of them both. She felt his gentle hands tugging at the knots she had made with a comb and he began to gently plait her hair. His hands were deft and in no time at all he had fixed her hair up perfectly.  
"Okay?"  
She nodded, touching her hair lightly, checking it was secure as well as pretty. It didn't fall out immediately. Valkyrie turned to say thank you, but he had already gone.  
She found her way to the dining room easily enough; most people had been heading in that direction, so she just followed the crowd. A pat on the head and she turned, finding the purple haired time traveller smirking down at her.  
"How you doing Val?"  
"Fine," she replied, a little tersely.  
"Bit of a shocker to see Skulduggery alive I bet."  
Val gave her a look. "You knew I was going to get roomed with him?"  
Liv nodded.  
"But that's dangerous!" she whisper yelled, not wanting to draw too much attention to herself. "I'm not supposed to meet him yet!"  
The time traveller gave her a look. "Did you seriously think that I would defy the rules of time travel? It's my bloody discipline!"  
Val gave her an incredulous look before realising that Liv was right. She knew what she had to do, and she probably would not have dragged Valkyrie to a school where Skulduggery was (and probably the other Dead Men) if it wasn't necessary.  
They got into the queue to get breakfast. Valkyrie had been up early and the hall wasn't too crowded yet. She spotted Skulduggery on the other side of the hall, along with Ghastly, Saracen, Dexter and Erskine. And was that Anton Shudder's scowl that she could see?  
Val groaned inwardly. She kept her head down, wishing that she had a curtain of hair to cover her face, and grabbed an assortment of food, trying to get to a seat as soon as she could.  
Liv had other ideas.  
"Come on, Val!" she yelled from across the hall, near to the teenage Dead Men. "I found us a seat."  
Damn.  
She could feel everyone's eyes watching her as she shuffled awkwardly to Liv, shooting her 'cousin' a look. "Hello again," she said, with an air of reluctance in her voice. She could see all the boys watching her, only Skulduggery showing recognition in his eyes. It hurt a bit to realise that she would have to reconnect with these men, the people that were her closest friends back in the future. She sat herself down, opposite Liv and next to Vex.

Oh, damn, thought Skulduggery to himself, watching as the dark haired girl walked towards their table. His plan to keep the eyes of his flirtatious friends had backfired. Even Anton, he noted, seemed to give the girl a look which suggested his interest in Valkyrie. Sly grins broke across their faces. He tried to keep the recognition from his face.  
"Hello," she muttered to them, giving the purple girl who had strode confidently to their table just now and yelled at Val from across the room a glare.  
Vex was the first to jump at the opportunity, probably assuming that because the girl had sat next to him that he could. He earned glares from all his friends, including Skulduggery himself. "What would be your lovely name then?" he said, addressing Valkyrie.  
The girl barely looked up from her bread and beans. "Valkyrie Cain," and pointing at the purple girl she then said, "Livena Estrange, my cousin."  
"Oh." Put off by how unresponsive she was, he was a bit lost for words. Most of his lines were rehearsed, and if a girl went off script it never turned out well for Vex.  
Rue stepped in next. "Nice name! Mine is Saracen Rue. The idiot who just spoke to you was Dexter Vex, Ghastly Bespoke is the one with scars, Anton Shudder is the one that doesn't speak, Erskine Ravel flirts too much-"  
"Say's you!" came Ravel's indignant cry.  
"- and Skulduggery Pleasant is the brains."  
"I know Skulduggery," she said, giving Rue a small smile before giving me an unreadable look. "He's my roommate."  
"You what?" Rue gave him a startled look which reminded Skulduggery of a surprised fish.  
"Did I not mention that?" was his cool reply, managing to make his face look indifferent.  
"That you are now sharing a room with a drop-dead gorgeous girl that is as beautiful as China, if not more? No, you didn't," retorted Vex, a little miffed.  
A blush swept across Valkyrie's face. Livena arched an eyebrow, amused.  
"Sorry," was all Skulduggery could say before China Sorrows herself sat herself down next to Skulduggery.  
"Hello boys!" she said cheerful.  
"Hi China," said Erskine. All of them (except Livena and Valkyrie) knew that Erskine had a thing for China, and Skul decided to let him do the talking with the spoilt, regal-like brat whose hobby was to pick up guys using symbols to make her seem more attractive. Not bothering to acknowledge China's presence, he instead turned his focus to Valkyrie.  
If it had been possible for the girl to look even more uncomfortable in her surroundings, Val had managed. Her body had frozen at the sight of Sorrows, her eyes trained, glaring at the other girl with malice, although the expression did seem foreign on her face.  
Livena picked up on Valkyrie change in mood and stood quickly. "We'll probably be seeing you guys later," she said and Val managed to recover herself to stand and follow her cousin.  
It surprised Skulduggery himself when he found that he had chased after the girls. "Do you girls need a tour of the place?" he asked to cover over his impulse.  
Livena smiled. "I don't," she told him, good-naturedly. "I have a photographic memory so I memorised the map of the place. Plus my roommate gave me a quick tour this morning.  
"Oh." He couldn't hide the slight disappointment from his voice.  
"But I'm sure Val needs a tour!" she finished as he was turning away. He felt himself perk up and looked quickly to Val for her response.  
"Sure," she said, giving him a smile. "I want to try and figure out this place before Monday."  
He struggled to stop the massive grin that was threatening to plaster itself on his face.


	7. In Which A Tour And A Fight Take Place

He showed her round the classrooms first. "They are all on the first and second floors, plus in the basement there are the training rooms and the main duelling room, the one they generally teach the larger classes in. Third and fourth floors are all bedrooms. Afternoon activities either take place outside or in the classrooms."  
Val nodded, getting hold of how the school was organised.  
"Do you have your timetable?" he asked.  
"In the room," she told him. "Apparently we are in the same classes."  
"He is probably wrong because people being in the exact same lessons as another barely ever happens, unless we have ridiculously similar interests. It doesn't matter anyway. We can look at it later." They had only just got to the basement and seeing as their room was on the top floor it would be a waste of time.  
The main duelling room was massive, a circular room that had a diameter of around one hundred metres. It was almost large enough to house the full scale duel that Darquesse and Lord Vile had that destroyed a lot of O'Connell Street in Dublin. She still couldn't believe how she and Skulduggery had managed to get away with that and how well the Sanctuary agents cleared up after them.  
She wanted to fight him again.  
"Can we have a duel?" she found herself asking.  
He gave her an odd look. "Are you sure you want fight me? I am the best fighter in the school, not to brag or anything."  
"I want to see how good I am and what my previous training has been in comparison to what is expected here. If you could offer constructive criticism, it would be nice."  
Skul nodded. "Okay."  
He left to tell a teacher that they would be fighting; a health and safety thing they had to do to in case someone got hurt. Val pulled of the cloak and adjusted her uniform so that it was comfortable and wouldn't get in her way whilst fighting.  
"The rules we follow at this school when it comes to duel are as follows," he told her when he came back. "The fight stops when some is knocked out or really badly hurt that they can no longer stand. Your aim is to get them on the ground via non-fatal methods. We should technically have an umpire but this duel really shouldn't get too violent if it is just to test out your abilities."  
They readied themselves, standing in the centre of the room opposite each other. He gave a little nod and then they were on each other.  
He did not have the same fighting style as the one he had as a skeleton; he was less refined in his movements and slightly more aggressive. Some of his moves were still underdeveloped and his subtlety was missing, but the style she was used to still there and that was enough for her to take advantage of it. After a couple of swipes, she managed to anticipate his false guard, one of his many tricks that he had taught Valkyrie, and she pretended to go for his gap. As his hand descended down, she pulled up at the last second and he lost his balance. She swiped a punch at his abdomen as he fell towards her.  
He dropped to the floor, grasping his lower stomach, groaning heavily. "I guess you win," he managed to wheeze out.  
She helped him up. "Sorry," she told him. "Come on, I'll take you to our room. I have something that should help the bruising."

She assisted him back to their room. He was still feeling nauseous after the punch she had given him and he was sure that he was bruised all over.  
"Are you not hurt?" he asked her. Despite his quick defeat, he had managed to pack in a few punches to her limbs which were bound to hurt.  
"I'm used to it. I've had worse. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last either."  
He gave her an odd look. She wasn't very old and yet she spoke with the air of experience. "You seem to have a lot of knowledge on the subject."  
It was clearly the wrong thing to say. He saw her close up and dismissively said, "Forget it."  
He didn't press any further and Val just shrugged it off and began to help him undress.  
"Don't get the wrong idea about this," she said with an air of dismissal in her voice. "I'm just helping you."  
"I haven't," murmured Skulduggery, although the feel of her hands was soothing and had lulled him into a light trance. He shook himself awake when he heard her speak.  
"I'm sorry, what?"  
She gave him a glare. "Did you not listen? I said that you need dissolve this stone in your bath water and soak in it for a few minutes. It gives the water healing properties and helps minor injuries. I get into so many scrapes that my doctor gave me a bag of them, so I have plenty." She held out a small pebble.  
Skul nodded and plucked the stone out of the palm of her hand. He had heard about these before. Kenspeckle, the school doctor was currently developing some, although where Valkyrie had got hers, he wasn't sure. Then again, it was clear that she was holding many secrets about herself and he doubted she would tell him where she had got these from until she had gained more of his trust. After all, they had only just met.  
It was also surprising that she had managed to beat him utterly and completely. He was the best combat fighter in school and the most advanced in his elemental studies, and yet this dark haired girl was using techniques he doubted people had ever thought about using in both her combat and her magic skills.  
"May I ask where you learnt how to fight and use magic?" he asked her as he stood himself up, avoiding putting too much pressure on his bruises. "The skills you have are exceptional, so you clearly have good trainers."  
He noticed the change in her body language when he mentioned her skills. She tensed slightly before shrugging it off. "I was taught by the best trainer there is. He taught me how to fight and about magic, although I am not the most patient of students. He is my best friend. I owe him my life and he owes me his. He knows my darkest secret and I, his. Together, we saved the world, several times actually. It was a good life, although I don't think I'll ever see him again properly."  
And with that, she left the room, which left Skulduggery more confused that ever about his new roommate.


	8. In Which Valkyrie Has A Small Crisis

"I almost told him everything."  
"You can't though. It's not what you are here to do."  
Val almost ran her hands through her hair in frustration before remembering that it was done up. "What am I here to do then?" she half yelled at Liv, who was sitting in her room, quietly sewing some sheets. Livena didn't bother to look up at the girl that paced the room.  
"I can't tell you that. I'm purely here for observational purposes to make sure all is going to plan, which currently it is. I am allowed to disclose further information later in the mission."  
"You make this sound like I'm an animal in a zoo, with no rights or anything!"  
Liv gave a small smile, but didn't look up from her sewing. "It's not like that. Everything you do here will be your choice, but the thing is I already know all your choices. Technically, I shouldn't be speaking to you. I should have just taken you here, but I figured you might appreciate some help."  
Val sighed and flopped onto the bed beside Liv. "I'm sorry," Val said as her anger dissipated. "I just can't do this."  
The sewing finally got set aside. "Sure you can!" the purple haired girl said, giving Val a small hug. "I'll try not to interfere too much and it might seem more normal and that your life is under your control. Ultimately the decisions you make will always be yours. It's just difficult to see it that way because technically, in your time, they have already happened."  
Val nodded, trying to gulp down her tears of frustration. She missed Skulduggery, the one she had first met, and she missed her parents and her sister and her job. Hell, she even missed the annoying villains that she and Skul came up against like Scapegrace (who technically didn't count, but there we are).  
"Thanks Liv."  
"That's okay. Treat me like a sister, okay?"  
"Sure." Tears wiped away, they stood and made their way down to lunch.  
"Why are you sewing?" Val asked, as they walked down the corridors.  
"I've made friends with Ghastly. He is teaching me his trade. When I've finished this job, I'm going to help him in the future."  
"Oh. That's nice!" A thought breezed through her mind. "How old are the Dead Men?"  
"Sixteen except for Anton Shudder and Saracen Rue. They are seventeen."  
"So nearly all of them are my age then?"  
Liv nodded as the got into the queue.  
The menu today was fish pie and peas. Plain, but filling. They made their way to the seats they were in that morning and were later joined by the Dead Men.  
"Afternoon, beautiful," said Dexter in his flirtatious manner.  
"Nice to see you again, pretty," catcalled Saracen.  
Ghastly rolled his eyes and slapped both of them round the head. "Sorry about them," he said. "Hello again, Valkyrie Cain and Livena Estrange."  
"Hi, Ghastly," Livena chirped cheerfully and the pair got into a deep discussion about sewing. Val turned to Skulduggery, who was rubbing his chest as if he was still in a bit of pain from earlier.  
"Are you okay, Skul?"  
He nodded. "I've still got a few small bruises, but most are healed."  
"Wait," cut in Dexter. "Skulduggery got hurt?"  
Skulduggery scowled as Valkyrie smirked triumphantly. "Yeah, I bashed him up earlier. I wanted to see how strong I was as a fighter before we started combat lessons. I completely aced the duel."  
"But Skul is the best fighter in the school!" Saracen blurted out. "He's better than most of the teachers. He always has to go up against Mr Callen because he is the only teacher that can actually put up a fight against him, and even then they are really evenly matched." All of the Dead Men were staring at her in shock.  
"I had a good trainer," Valkyrie said, blushing slightly, trying to ignore the eyes on her. "He taught me a lot, and what he couldn't teach me, he would get an expert in to teach me instead. He also taught me how to fight without relying on my magic, so I am more capable. But at the same time, he taught me how to use magic in combat so it works to my advantage, little subtle things that could be the difference between life and death."  
"She was much better than me," admitted Skulduggery, if a little reluctantly. "I don't think I've seen anybody like her, being able to fight so well, considering her age."  
"How long have you been practicing magic and combat for with this trainer?"  
"Four years."  
There was silence.  
"Four years? FOUR YEARS?!" Saracen was shrieking. People from the other side of the food hall were beginning to turn around to stare at a raging Saracen. "I'VE BEEN PRACTICING SINCE I WAS BLOODY BORN AND I AM STILL NOWHERE NEAR AS GOOD AS SKULDUGGERY AND HERE YOU COME…"  
Skulduggery stood up, held his hand out to Valkyrie and led her away from the ranting boy. She turned round just before they left the hall. Everybody was staring at the remained of the Dead Men and Liv, who were all trying to restrain Saracen, who continued ranting at the top of his voice.  
"Sorry about that."  
Val looked up at him. "No, it's okay. I wasn't expecting to be better than you, all I did was fought the way I knew how to."  
They walked in a comfortable silence back to their room. It wasn't until they settled down on their separate beds did Skulduggery break the silence. "How are you so powerful?"  
Valkyrie looked up at him. "I trained. I was twelve when I got introduced to the world of magic."  
"You weren't born magical?"  
She shook her head. "No, but my uncle knew about magic, but he got killed, which was kind of when I got thrown into the world of magic. I was almost killed more than ten times throughout the course of one week."  
"Oh. I see what you meant earlier when it came to pain."  
"Yeah, I'm used to it."  
They smiled at each other, a little awkwardly, but none the less, Valkyrie was getting used to it.


	9. Which Consists Of Lessons

The rest of the weekend flew by. Valkyrie managed not to talk to Saracen for the rest of the Saturday, only really facing him at meal times. He had calmed down by the next day, but she still spent most of her time with Ghastly, Skulduggery and Livena, just talking about various things.  
Monday came and Valkyrie was literally flung out of bed by Skulduggery Pleasant.  
"Wake up, sleepyhead!" he called into her ear. She slapped him in response, hard and got up off the wooden floor, grabbing her school clothes and pulling them on quickly as Skulduggery sorted himself out in the bathroom. He helped her with her hair again, deftly braiding it into the required style and she followed him down to the hall again.  
"Do you have your planner?" he asked her.  
She waved the little brown hardback in his face.  
"Where is your timetable?"  
She opened the book and waved the timetable in his face.  
"We have Physical Combat today, followed immediately by Magical Combat. Do you have your uniform for that?"  
She pulled her bag full of the combat uniform out from behind her.  
"There are lockers inside the changing rooms, and you will get one assigned to you. That's where your main uniform stays and where you put all your stuff during the class. After class, you can leave the uniform in the locker, and someone will wash it on a regular basis for you."  
"Nice," Val said, smiling at him. "I like this school. They do stuff for you."  
"I suppose. They want us to concentrate on our school work and learning stuff, so they get other people to do the chores."  
They got into the breakfast queue, whilst Valkyrie continued to read her timetable. "Our first lesson is fine art. I like art."  
"Yeah, it's quite fun, and it's a good skill to have. Plus the teacher is nice, which is a change from some teachers. I will tell you now that Mrs Crow is really scary when she gets angry, so she is not one to cross."  
"I'll bear that in mind," murmured Val, as she grabbed her portion of beans and bread. They walked over to the Dead Men's table. Liv was already there along with Anton and Ghastly, but Dexter, Saracen and Ravel had not yet appeared.  
"Saracen and Dexter always sleep in. They don't bother to eat breakfast. Instead they have a massive portion of food at lunch. Erskine is likely to have overslept, as he always does on a Monday. He keeps forgetting that it's a Monday. He'll arrive through the double doors in about five minutes and will complain about the fact that it's the beginning of the week."  
True to his word, Ravel stumbled through the door five minutes later, looking very grumpy and rushed. He stomped over to get his food and returned to them muttering curses under his breath.  
"Morning, Erskine. How are you today?" Ghastly asked, cheerfully.  
"Annoyed. I can't believe its Monday again and my roommate never wakes me up in time."  
Skulduggery leant over and murmured, "What did I say?"  
"Clearly you know your friends very well, Mr Pleasant."

Fine art was very fascinating and thankfully did not bore Valkyrie to death, because if it had, she would have insisted to Liv to take her back home immediately. The teacher, Miss Cadence, was a sweet lady with one brown eye and one silver eye, who was able to compliment everybody's work, even Erskine's, who was utterly failing when it came to art. She set the class a project for the term; they had to produce an observational drawing of a person and, to start the project off, they were told to make quick rough drawings of people around the room. They were told to focus on the shape of their figures more than fine detailing. Valkyrie grabbed a sheet of cartridge paper some sketching pencils and scanned the room to find a person to draw.  
The first person she spotted was Skulduggery, who was leaning lazily against the wall, his eyes flickering all over the room, taking in the surroundings. He barely moved as he drew and Valkyrie decided to sketch him out.  
She went into more detail than she had intended to initially, but by the first quarter hour of the lesson, she completed her first sketch. She proceeded to draw several other people who were lounging in interesting positions, but they kept moving before she finally completed the sketch. By the end of the lesson she had the one drawing of Skulduggery that went into more detail than necessary and a dozen figures that were incomplete.  
To her surprise, Miss Cadence, absolutely adored the work. "You have a good eye for drawing, Miss Cain," she told her. "You need to talk to Skulduggery Pleasant and exchange tips. He adores drawing too."  
That was something Valkyrie hadn't known. The future Skulduggery had never mentioned this passion for drawing before, nor had she ever seen him draw before. She caught up with Skulduggery on the way to Physical Combat and asked him about his art.  
"Oh, I draw loads. Whenever I can, I will pick up a sketchbook and draw something."  
"Can I see some of your work?"  
"Sure, this evening you can."  
Livena was in her Physical Combat Class. Val saw her as she walked in and waved. Liv waved back and walked over to her.  
"I got your locker key. The teacher said he needed to check on the boys in the changing room and probably wouldn't bump into you until you got to the hall so he gave it to me."  
"Thanks." They all changed in a slight rabble and then wandered out of the changing room to the fighting hall were she and Skul had practiced on the first day. The uniforms were both practical, but slightly revealing in Val's opinion, but she ignored the slightly too short shorts and form fitting T-shirt, walking into the hall with an air of confidence.  
The students in the class were all sixteen to seventeen year olds, and they lined up against the wall. The hall itself was now full of equipment, only the inner ten metre diameter being left free for duelling practice. The teacher, whose name was Mr Callen (the only person other than her who could fight Skulduggery) gave a shout to quieten them down.  
"Okay, most of you know what you need to be doing. Work on the stuff you've been assigned to. If you passed your target last lesson, move on to the next piece of equipment and so on. Is Livena Estrange and Valkyrie Cain in here?"  
Valkyrie and Liv lifted their hands shyly. "Hello girls, welcome to Physical Combat. Come over here and I'll explain what you are expected to do in these lessons."  
The crowd dispersed, moving towards various pieces of equipment. Skulduggery walked straight to the bars and began to do chin ups. She let her eyes linger on him for as long as she dared before she continued scanning the hall.  
"Now, can you girls fight?" Callen asked them.  
"A little," Livena said, shuffling slightly. "I know how to punch and kick properly, but not how to actually fight."  
Callen nodded. "Okay, for now I'm assigning you to working on your stamina before progressing to strength and fighting skills." He put got her jogging around the room, telling her that as soon as she managed to run the diameter of the hall (about one hundred metres) within less than fourteen seconds, and run eight-hundred metres in under three and a half minutes, she could then move onto other things.  
He then turned to Valkyrie. "What are your capabilities then, Miss Cain?"  
"I fought Skulduggery on Saturday when I first came, to see how strong I was in comparison to the other students. I beat him easily, Skulduggery can prove that."  
Callen frowned. "Are you sure he wasn't going easy on you?"  
"Pretty sure."  
"Fine." Callen still didn't seem to believe me. "Can I get you to fight against Mr Pleasant again so I can see what you need to improve on, please?  
"Sure!"  
"Pleasant!" Mr Callen called. Skulduggery dropped off the bars, and walked over.  
"Yes, sir?"  
"You fought Cain here on Saturday, is that correct?"  
"Yes, sir."  
"Did she win the fight?"  
"We were quite evenly matched the beginning, but she won fairly easily."  
Callen frowned again. "Can I get you two to spar please? I want to record Cain's abilities."  
They both got prepared at the side of the ring, tightening the padded arm and leg guards and removing shoes. Before Callen got them to step into the ring, Skulduggery came up to her.  
"I'm actually kind of scared. I'm not going to hold back at all and neither can you, yet I know you're going to completely flatten me in front of our entire year group, including my friends."  
"What, are you worried about your reputation?" Valkyrie almost giggled.  
"That, plus I'm worried about how long I might need to stay in the infirmary because of you."  
Val smiled at him before Callen told them to step into the fighting ring. They took their stances, bracing themselves as well as making their bodies ready to dodge. Some people, Valkyrie noted began to stop and stare. Obviously seeing someone other than the teacher fight Skul was unusual.  
"Fight."  
They began to circle each other, Skulduggery too nervous to make the first move and Valkyrie not wanting to make the first move because of instinct; the older Skulduggery had taught her to never attack first unless you got the upper hand of the situation in doing so. Finally, Skulduggery got tired of waiting and pounced.  
Valkyrie was ready. He lashed out twice, his first punch aiming for her face, the second towards her abdomen. She anticipated both of them, ducking under the first and blocking the second with her arm. She managed to get a grip on his arm before he could bounce away and kick at her with his potentially lethal turning kick (probably not quite as polished at this age, but would definitely still pack a punch). Using his arm as a balance, she did a roundhouse kick to the top of his head, but he was already moving forward, making her unbalanced and she only swiped over the top of his head. He tried to pull her over, but she nimbly jumped away from him to gain space to correct her stance and moved in to attack again. Rather than aiming for his face like he was expecting, she ducked the swipe he threw at her, dropping onto all fours and knocking his feet out from under him. He toppled over as she sprang up and leapt on him, pinning him to the ground with her weight and trapping both arms and legs with her own.  
He struggled in her grip, but as he tossed her off his body, she used her momentum to aim a kick at his chin. Contact was immediate and he dropped like a rock to the floor.  
"Ow, that hurt!"  
"Sorry!" she rushed over to help him up, though he tried to refuse it. Eventually, he realised that he actually couldn't get up without her help. He let her pull him up and lean him on her shoulder.  
Everyone was staring at them. "You beat Pleasant?" a blonde boy said, conveying the awe everyone was experiencing in those words.  
Mr Callen also gave her a very funny look. "You are a very strong fighter. Who taught you?"  
"My mentor and when he couldn't train me, he got someone in to teach me. He invested a lot of time into my training. I owe him a lot."  
"Who was your mentor?"  
Valkyrie looked round at the girl standing at the edge of the circle who had asked the question. She had bright frizzy red hair falling out of her braid and looked kind-hearted, but at that moment, she was her worst enemy. Val felt her mind stutter for an answer, her gaze darting wildly around the room to try and spot Liv who might get her out of the problem. It wasn't a question she could exactly answer. "It doesn't matter," Val dismissed, not making eye contact with anybody. "He doesn't exist anymore."  
Some people frowned at this but by then Skulduggery was really feeling like he was collapsing on her. "Sir, I think Skul needs to be taken to the medical ward."  
"Take him over, but try and be back before the end of the lesson. I still need to talk to you about what you need to do during these lessons."  
Val nodded and helped Skulduggery over to the door. Ghastly also ran over to help her. "Thanks," she mumbled. "He is really heavy."  
"Am not," came Skul's indignant reply.  
"Are to," both Ghastly and Val said at the same time.  
"Balls, you win."  
"Yay! I win!" Valkyrie laughed.  
"Hey, don't you mean both of us won?" the scarred tailor stated, a little annoyed.  
"Whoops, sorry Ghastly."


	10. In Which Valkyrie And Kenspeckle Meet

They walked through the doors of the medical room and Valkyrie almost dropped Skulduggery onto one of the empty beds.  
“Hey, careful!” he said, sounding a bit miffed. “I am not a thing!”  
But before Valkyrie could say sorry, Kenspeckle Grouse had rounded the corner. “Mr Pleasant, what have you done to yourself.”  
“Miss Cain here beat me up, sir.” Skulduggery sounded completely sincere as he described how she had beat him in a fight whilst Valkyrie tried to keep the shock from appearing on her face. “Can I have some sympathy please?” he finished off. “I completely deserve some.”  
“No you don’t, you good for nothing rascal,” Kenspeckle grumped, but Val could hear the laughter in his voice. She smiled softly at the recognisable attitude that the grouchy doctor always had when she had known him.   
Ghastly gave Valkyrie a knowing look. “He pretends to hate Skul, mainly because he is Grouse’s most regular visitor. Skulduggery is always doing something stupid, trying to solve some ‘mystery’ which always leads him to broken limbs or something, but I think underneath it all, he actually likes Skul in a grumpy kind of way.”  
“Bespoke, what are you still doing here?” Kenspeckle yelled from the other side of the room. “Pleasant doesn’t need anymore attention. He gets enough as it is”  
“Sorry, sir! I’ll be getting back to my lesson. Come on, Val,” he said to me.  
“No, Cain, can you stay here please?”  
Valkyrie frowned slightly at the request. “Of course, sir.” She looked at Ghastly and he shrugged before leaving.  
“Miss Cain.” Valkyrie jumped, spinning around on the spot to find Kenspeckle standing right beside her with a cloth and a small blue stone. “I have not seen you before around here.”  
“No, sir, I’m new.”  
“Ah, fair enough. You can beat Skulduggery in a fight.”  
“Without magic, yes sir. I still don’t know what I’m like with my powers.”  
“You are likely to be even stronger with the aid of your powers. You must have been taught well.”  
Val smiled. “Everyone keeps saying so.”  
Kenspeckle put the little stone and the cloth into a pot of cold water that was at Skulduggery’s bedside. He swirled the cloth around a bit before pulling it out and wiping the stuff over Skul’s chin and forehead.  
“He is slightly concussed from knocking his head on the floor and he has a sore chin. You okay there, Pleasant?”  
Skulduggery mumbled a yes. He looked slightly sleepy, as if he was going to drop off at any second.  
“Will he come back before the end of this lesson?” she asked.  
“Definitely,” Kenspeckle stated. “He’ll be up in five minutes. The solution is very strong, but doesn’t have any side affects meaning that even a strong dose is safe and it works quicker with a stronger concentration.”  
True to his word, Skulduggery was sitting up in less than five minutes and, after briefly being checked that his concussion symptoms had completely gone, was dismissed ten minutes before the end of the lesson.

“Thank you for not beating me up too much,” Skulduggery told her as they walked together back down the corridor towards the hall again. “I really didn’t want to miss Magical Combat. It is way more fun than Physical.”  
“What do you do?” she asked him.  
“Well, you don’t do all the stamina and strength building that you do during Phys Combat, but you do the fighting, as well as developing your magical skills during combat.”  
“Shouldn’t be too difficult then,” Valkyrie said, simply. “I fight with magic all the time.”  
“Everyone does, but the point of Magical Combat is to improve your efficiency during a fight, using aspects of you magic that can help your stamina, or strength or agility. For example, us Elementals, we can manipulate the air to help your agility during a fight, and we can use the earth for defence, although we don’t use that very often. Fire is always great to keep your opponents back and distracted. Water is useful in some circumstances, like keeping rain off you during a fight, as that can be distracting, or other things.”  
They entered the hall just as Mr Callen was dismissing them. “Remember to be promptly back here when the bell goes!” he yelled after them and then he caught sight of the two of them. “Pleasant, Cain! Over here please!”  
They jogged over. “Yes, sir?” Valkyrie asked him.  
“I’ve set you work for the Physical Combat lessons. Every other lesson we spar with our partners. Your partner will be Pleasant here, seeing as he needs the challenge anyway. On the lessons we do general training, you will be making your way around the various equipment, pushing yourself as much as possible to improve your strength, which will definitely help you. You beat Pleasant through fighting tactics and whilst that works most of the time, I think you will find you will improve drastically and be able to beat people who use their strength to an advantage. For example, if Skulduggery had pinned you down, you would have really struggled to get out of the grab.”  
“Yes, sir.”  
“Pleasant, your technique needs to be polished off. If you and Cain practice on a regular basis, you can help each other improve and you both will go far in life. Now, go have your break and be back for Magical Combat on time.”  
The Dead Men, Livena and China were all outside waiting for them. China threw a slightly annoyed look at Valkyrie which Skulduggery noticed before he proceeded to ignore her completely.  
Livena was in a deep conversation with Ghastly and Anton. It surprised Skulduggery, as Anton hardly ever talked to people, nor did he ever show an interest in girls. He appeared to be acting a bit strange over the past few days. Then again, he found that ever since Valkyrie and Livena had started at their school, odd things had started to happen. At least Erskine was still completely enamoured with China as normal, and Skulduggery watched him flirt badly with her, smirking under his hand.


	11. In Which A Third Duel Occurs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note to all- All of the magic disciplines in this story have been researched as thoroughly as possible, but the majority of my information has been taken off the Skulduggery Pleasant Wikia page. If you have read differently elsewhere, or don't know what I'm talking about when I say someone is a kineticist, please go check out the disciplines written on the Wikia page, as they give a brief description of the ones I am using in the story.  
> Alright. ON WITH THE STORY- Leo

The break flew by and in no time at all, Skulduggery found himself facing Valkyrie from the other side of the fighting ring.  
“This is a test of your elemental abilities, just to see how far along with your training you are, Miss Cain,” said Mrs Crow, the headmaster’s wife, who was also the Magical Combat teacher.  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
“Get ready.”  
Valkyrie shot him a very scary smirk from her side of the ring, and Skulduggery wondered whether going up against her for the second time today was a good idea.  
“Fight!”  
Unlike their last battle, Valkyrie immediately attacked, which surprised him because he was not expecting this approach from her. She managed to propel herself up with a gust of wind and then pounced down on him from above. He only just managed to roll out of the way and then she was at him again, fire in her hands, swiping fiery punches at him. He brought flames into his own hands, allowing them to go down his arms slightly to help block the punches.  
He suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet become unstable and he tumbled over. Puzzled, got up with some aid from the air and looked at the ground. It was all crumbly and uneven.  
She took advantage of his bafflement by kicking twice, hitting his side and his face. He tumbled over again and she leapt on him, pinning him down again.  
Skulduggery shoved two burning hands in her face and she jerked back, providing him with a gap in which he threw her off him and pinned her down instead. He held her hands back and her legs flailed, kicking him several times.  
He was positive he had won, so he was very confused when suddenly he was on the ground again and Valkyrie was standing above him, a triumphant smirk on her face.   
“What on earth did you do?” he asked, bringing his hand to his stomach which felt like someone had driven over it.  
“Good fighters never give out their secrets.”  
“Cain wins the match,” called Renne Crow, a huge grin on her face. “Good work, Miss Cain.”  
Rather than the faces around them portraying disbelief, most of the students were smiling and applauding Valkyrie. Skulduggery was tempted to sulk. Whilst it was fun to have someone challenging to train with, it still hurt his pride slightly to find that he was no longer top. Even so, he couldn’t help but smile at Valkyrie as she helped him up again. “Your stomach okay?” she asked him as he balanced himself.  
Skulduggery nodded.  
Crow walked over to them. “Clearly Miss Cain is an incredibly capable young mage. How long have you been practicing for?” she asked Val.  
“Four years.”  
Mrs Crow’s eyebrows raised, but she said nothing, merely writing it down on her notepad. “Who’s your mentor?”  
Skulduggery watched her body freeze at the question, mirroring the expression she had earlier when Mr Callen had asked the same thing. “He doesn’t exist anymore, ma’am.”  
“Is he a notable figure in the magical society, Miss Cain?”  
“Not particularly.”  
Her responses were brief, as if she was incredibly unwilling to give out any details concerning this mentor of hers. Skulduggery looked around to see if anyone was watching, but everyone had immersed themselves into their routines for Magical Combat. Ghastly was over with the elementals, practicing against Erskine, both of their hands flaming. Dexter was over at the other end of the hall, throwing energy at fellow energy throwers. Saracen and Anton were both chatting together a couple of metres away, gists being difficult magical disciplines to practice and Saracen having just converted to using his obscure, unknown new adept discipline. Skulduggery figured they would get anger management classes for Anton soon and get Saracen to do mentoring for some of the younger students in the school during the period.  
Skulduggery turned his attention back to Valkyrie, who had relaxed in the brief seconds when his attention had been diverted. Mrs Crow asked her a few more general questions as she always did with new students before assigning them their work for the next couple of lessons.

“I would like you to spar with Mr Pleasant on sparring days,” Renne Crow told Valkyrie, who nodded, trying to take in as much information as possible. “On the days we don’t have sparring, I would like you to develop your elemental abilities. I see that you are capable of manipulating earth which many students can’t do yet and so I would like you to be able to teach them. I am not an elemental myself so it is difficult for me to train you. Instead, I encourage students to partner up with someone of a similar ability to work together and train each other, noting their errors and correcting them. For you, I suggest you partner up with Mr Pleasant here or possibly Alexis Kai over there who is also very practiced in the theory of the elemental discipline.” Crow pointed out a tan coloured girl with beautiful black hair that was pulled back into a pony tail who didn’t appear to be fighting practically, but more advising people. Valkyrie noticed that she was not built like a fighter, but looked slender and fragile.  
“I’m presuming she isn’t into fighting much,” she told Crow.  
“No, she is a pacifist,” Crow responded. “She only fights defensively, but is incredibly good at analysing other people’s movements and has memorised several technique books on several disciplines so she is our advisor.”  
Valkyrie shot her an odd look. “What’s her discipline?”  
“Linguist and Etymologist. Incredibly well versed girl. She’s a good person to talk to if you need advice. You can get her to mentor you, or watch when you and Mr Pleasant fight so she can help you improve. You as well, Mr Pleasant,” she addressed Skulduggery.  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
“Help each other. You both have a lot of potential.”  
They smiled at each other.


	12. In Which Time Has Passed

The winter holidays came so quickly that Valkyrie was stunned when she realised she had already been in a magical 1600s school for a whole month. Livena laughed at her expression when Ghastly had mentioned it to the two of them in passing; she described it later as being her goldfish expression. Valkyrie couldn’t stop the small pout from appearing on her face.  
Thankfully, it hadn’t taken long for Valkyrie to ease herself back into the Dead Men’s friendship group and was soon back into the routine of casually flirting with the boys.  
Livena was the person who suggested that she should try and make friends with people outside of the Dead Men and introduced her to Elysia Venka, the girl with the insane red, frizzy hair who had commented on her fight with Skulduggery during the first Physical Combat lesson she had at Ende Academy. Ely reminded Valkyrie painfully of Tanith with her quirky personality and the fact that she had an identical discipline to her remnant possessed friend. Elysia’s friends (who quickly became Livena and Valkyrie’s friends) were just as quirky.  
September Ora, a kineticist, was a short brunette, but was able to sprint so quickly that you could barely see her when she did so. She would generally get mocked for her height (she was barely five foot), but she would generally be able to beat them up badly due to her incredible speed and the strength she gained from her discipline.  
Elena Darnell was a skilled sensitive who had short, bright blue hair that stuck up everywhere and bounced to lessons instead of walked. She was fortunate that she didn’t have to do anything with her hair unless she was going out in public, where she had to wear a wig so as not to shock any of the mortals around the area (of which there were few, but precautions had to be made). She was also ridiculously pale and September liked to recount the story when Lena got horrible sunburn and was bright pink for a week after.  
The five girls became almost inseparable. Valkyrie introduced them to the Dead Men, who were more than happy to have new people to flirt with. Erskine briefly dropped his crush on China and insisted that Elena was the girl for him and he attempted to spend their first lunchtime together sitting next to the blue haired girl, whispering things in her ear. It must have been somewhat suggestive because she swiftly threw a hefty punch at the boy’s face, which gave him a black eye that stayed swollen for at least two days. It was the only act of violence that Valkyrie ever saw Lena commit and Erskine never bothered her again and resumed his obsession over China Sorrows.  
Valkyrie was amused to see that Saracen and Dexter, despite generally flirting at the girls, seemed to take some sort of interest in each other. In her head, whilst she knew that she had a small baby crush on Dexter, she had always thought that the two of them would make a very cute couple. She was surprised to find that they actually did appear to like each other as teens in a romantic way. She made a mental note to herself to ensure she asked Dexter and Saracen about their feelings for each other when she returned to the twenty-first century. It would be very amusing to see their reactions when she did.  
If she did.  
The doubt that Valkyrie would ever return to the 21st Century had been haunting her for her entire time at the school. She did not notice how much this mystery affected her during the day because of how busy she was, but she struggled to sleep during the night, tossing and turning. Skulduggery had even picked up on the signs that she was not herself, and he had only really known her for a month. She had tried approaching Liv about the topic, but she had always managed to evade her, making random excuses. Valkyrie was planning to confront Livena about the problem again when she was distracted. As the holidays approached, the conversations around school changed to discussions concerning the Winter Ball and whether they would be going home for the holidays.  
“What ball?” Val had asked Dexter and Saracen when they had mentioned it.  
“Every holiday, the school plans a ball for the school to give us a chance to socialise and have some fun,” Dexter explained. “They mainly do it to distract us all from the war.”  
“What war?”  
Both Saracen and Dexter gave her funny looks. “Have you been living under a rock?” Saracen asked her. “The one with Mevolent that has been going on for the past ten years?”  
“Oh, right.” Valkyrie blushed. “I forgot about The War.”  
“You forgot?” Dexter sounded incredulous. “How could you forget?”  
“I tend to blank out the fact that it’s happening,” she bluffed. “It’s the only way I can cope with the fact that it’s happening.”  
Their expressions changed from puzzled to sympathetic. “Oh, fair enough.”  
Valkyrie quickly diverted the subject back to the Winter Ball. “When is the ball then?”  
“This Friday,” Dexter grinned, looking at Saracen slyly out of the corner of his eye. “I invited Ely and she said yes.”  
“I invited Lena,” was Saracen’s smart reply.  
“Seriously?”  
“Yep.”  
“Despite Erskine trying to hit on her and her slapping you?”  
“Yep.” He was looking ridiculously smug with himself. Dexter just looked impressed, a slightly dreamy expression appearing on his face.  
“So, who is Erskine going with? And Anton and Skulduggery,” Val asked the pair, interrupting their flirting.  
“Erskine has asked China more than ten times. China has said no, obviously waiting for Skulduggery to ask her. Skulduggery hasn’t asked anyone. Anton asked Liv. Liv said yes.”  
“Seriously?”  
“Yep.”  
“Wow.”  
“I know.”  
“So Skulduggery isn’t going with anyone yet?”  
“Not that I know of, but here he comes now,” said Dexter, leaning round Val.  
She quickly spun around and sure enough. There was Skulduggery walking down the corridor, a smirk on his face.  
“He’s up to something, isn’t he,” she muttered.  
“Most definitely,” said Saracen.  
Skulduggery strode up to the trio, smiling at them before turning towards Valkyrie.  
“Hello, can I speak to you a moment?”  
Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. “About what?”  
“You’ll see,” he replied, wiggling his eyebrows is such as way that made her giggle. “What?” he asked, puzzled as she slowly succumbed to the hysterics.  
“They’re wiggly!” Val couldn’t stop, doubled over in laughter.  
Skulduggery gave her an odd look. “Umm, Saracen, Dexter, will you give us a moment?”  
They nodded, giving him knowing looks as they walked passed. “Making a move are you, Pleasant?” Dexter asked him subtly as he walked passed.  
“None of your beeswax, Vex. Are you hitting on Saracen again?”  
“Might be.”  
Skulduggery gave him a glare and Dexter swiftly ran to catch up with Saracen to get out of Skul’s hair.  
Valkyrie was still giggling slightly long after they had gone. “Are you done yet?” Skulduggery asked her, a little irritably.  
“I’m okay,” she managed to breathe out. “Out of breath.”  
“Obviously.”  
Val managed to compose herself, stood straight and smiled at him. “What did you want to talk to me about?”  
In all the confusion, Skulduggery had forgotten what he had wanted to ask her. It took him a few seconds to remember his motives for finding Valkyrie and almost flushed a bright red. “Oh, yes. I wanted to ask whether anyone had asked you to the Winter Ball yet.”  
Valkyrie gave him an odd look. “No, I only just found out about it. Dexter and Saracen were just telling me about it. Apparently Anton asked Liv and she said yes.  
Skulduggery was taken aback. “Anton asked someone out before I did? He never goes to any of the school balls.”  
“I know. I was shocked too.”  
They gazed at each other for a few seconds, realised what they were doing and awkwardly looked away.  
“I wanted to ask you to the ball, Valkyrie,” he said after a brief silence.  
Valkyrie’s head, which had been surveying the ceiling after the moment of awkwardness, whipped round to look at him again, the shock clear on her face. “Seriously?”  
“Seriously. You seem really nice, unlike half of the idiot girls in the school. I dated a lot of them already and they are all really boring and anyway-.”  
A surge of anger grew inside of Valkyrie. He had already dated most of the girls in the school? If he just ended up treating her the same way he had done with the others, then she would be heartbroken. He was not faithful, because he wasn’t the Skulduggery she knew and loved. She thought about all the people he had dated and what they would think of her if she did say yes.  
“No.”  
“What?” Skulduggery had never been refused before. “What do you mean, no?”  
“I said no.”  
Valkyrie saw his face tighten in anger. “Fine. Go alone.” He turned on his heel to leave.  
“I won’t be going at all,” called after him.  
“Whatever. Do I look like I care?”  
She tried to stop the tears welling in her eyes. “No. You don’t.”


	13. In Which Anton Deals With A Petty Spat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So people are reading this! Great! Please Comment (I will reply) and leave Kudos! I love support!!! :)  
> ON WITH THE STORY NOW!  
> \- Leo

They didn't speak for the rest of the week. Val had to go to Liv's room to get her hair fixed up and she didn't spend any time with the other Dead Men until Anton approached her the day before the Winter Ball in the library.  
"Skulduggery is going with China to the ball tomorrow," he said simply.  
Valkyrie looked up from the book on elemental magic that Alexis had given her to read as teaching material. "Should I care?"  
"I do. I hate her."  
"So why are you telling me?"  
"Because he likes you."  
Val turned to look at him properly. "No he doesn't. That's why I said no when he asked me initially. Why are you even talking to me? You never talk."  
"He's with the wrong person," he said simply. "I hate China. Never liked her. I like you. You're not like China."  
"I appreciate the vote of confidence but Skulduggery is with China at the moment, so how is your opinion going to help?"  
"You need to talk to him."  
"I need to talk to him?"  
"Yeah, he doesn't get that you said no because he is not known to be a dedicated person. You are selfish, but in a good way and you had every right to say no. He, however, is selfish to a point that it is difficult to tell him no because he will react like a spoilt child. You are, so far, the only person who has ever stood up to him in that way, and therefore you have the capability to change him for the better."  
"And how do I do that?"  
"Keep talking to him. Explain why you said no."  
Valkyrie rolled her eyes at him, turning back to the book.  
"I've been talking to Liv. You need to talk to him."  
"You asked her out."  
"I like Liv. She is a lovely girl. She tells me her problems. I help her."  
"Okay, and she has told you to talk to me about what to do with Skulduggery."  
"Yes."  
Valkyrie sighed. She knew that it would take a lot for Liv to intervene, so something couldn't be right. "Fine. I'll talk to him this evening, if he comes back to the dormitory before eleven for once."  
"I'll make sure he does."

Sure enough, that evening, Anton dragged Skulduggery to room four-hundred and thirty-two, where Valkyrie was waiting at precisely ten thirty.  
"Managed to get him," he said briskly, shoving the protesting green eyed teen into the room. "Be nice to each other. I want you two to be talking to each other again before tomorrow breakfast or you'll face my wrath."  
They both nodded, slightly frightened by the threat, knowing Anton held by his promises.  
They sat opposite each other on their own bed, Skulduggery almost glaring at her, but curiosity getting the better of him. Valkyrie kept trying to make eye contact with him, although kept breaking away.  
"He wanted us to talk," Skulduggery said after a while.  
"Yep."  
The silence was unbearable and they both fidgeted, Valkyrie tugging at her bed sheets, Skulduggery with the seams in his clothes. Finally, he asked, "Why did you say no?"  
"Because you basically said that you dated all the girls in the school, said they were boring and I didn't want to be the last one of a string of ex-girlfriends that have had their hearts broken by you."  
"Oh. Right."  
"Understand now."  
"Yeah, I probably shouldn't have mentioned how much I date whilst asking you out."  
"No, maybe not." Looking up, Valkyrie noticed that Skulduggery was smiling. Then she was smiling, and then they were laughing their heads off.  
"Would it change things if I apologise for my insensitivity?"  
"Well, it would definitely be an improvement seeing as you are the most self-centred idiot in the entire school."  
"Well, I apologise."  
"Thank you. I apologise for overreacting."  
"Would you still be willing to go to the Winter Ball with me?"  
Valkyrie looked at him slightly incredulously. "Aren't you going with China?"  
"Well, not exactly. She suggested that I go with her, seeing as you backed out and she felt sympathetic, which is surprising because she is never sympathetic. I never confirmed that I would go with her so, if you want, I will tell her no."  
"I haven't prepared at all for this ball! You expect me to go like this?"  
"Your nightgown would be lovely," Skulduggery blurted out. He then flushed a bright red. "I did not just say that.  
Valkyrie had blushed equally as red. "That was not was I was expecting to hear."  
"No, it wasn't something I had been planning to say."  
"Right. You look at me in my nightgown often?"  
"Perhaps we shouldn't go into that."  
"Maybe not."  
"So, will you?"  
Valkyrie gave him a look. "Get me a dress for tomorrow evening and I'll be there."  
"Count on it."


	14. Which Is Full Of Dresses

The Winter Ball had been organised to be held on the last day of the school term. After the ball, those who tended to go home to their families for the holiday would do so with the aid of the Theory of Magic teacher, Mr Iagan, who was a teleporter. A lot of the students in the school lived a long way off, in various hamlets. They had all discussed about who was going home over breakfast the next morning.  
"Basically, all the Dead Men end up staying with me and Ghastly," explained Skulduggery. "Dexter and Anton were both orphaned when they were younger, so they practically live with us now. Saracen has abusive parents, so he also stays with us whenever he can to avoid them. Erskine gets lonely, so often ends up spending a lot of the holidays with us anyway."  
Valkyrie nodded. "My parents don't know about magic, so I had to fake my death a few years ago," she lied, smoothly. "I ended up staying with Liv, who's parents died a while ago, wandering everywhere to find shelter. It was difficult." She looked down at her plate to avoid making eye contact with Skulduggery in case he could see the lie.  
Liv had been listening carefully. "We're planning on staying here for the holiday."  
Skulduggery tilted his head. "You could stay at mine or Ghastly's place for the holiday."  
"We really couldn't," said Liv. "We wouldn't want to impose on your families like that."  
Ghastly shook his head. "You wouldn't be a problem. Our parents are horribly hospitable; it's almost like they are cursed."  
"Really?" Valkyrie and Liv said, at the same time.  
"If we told them about you two, they would be furious with us if we didn't invite you home," Ghastly grumbled. "You would be treated like royalty."  
Liv turned to Valkyrie. "Shall we?"  
"Why not?" she replied. "It would be better than aimlessly roaming around the school for fourteen days.  
Skulduggery smiled. "It will make spending time with idiots more bearable for definite."  
"Hey, I'm not an idiot!" called Erskine, from the other side of the table.  
"Actually, out of all of us, you are probably the most brainless, Ravel," mumbled Dexter, who had only just arrived at the table, lightly pushing his plate on the surface and gracelessly thumped into his seat. Saracen closely followed him, sitting next to him. "I think you have less brain cells than a fish."  
"I heard that! Rude!"  
"Anyway, lessons finish early today," continued Skulduggery. "We need to get you a dress, and there is no better place to go but Ghastly's father's Dress Shop."  
"Oh, so you are taking her to the Winter Ball then?" Saracen said from the other end of the table.  
"Yep. We can get Mr Iagan to take us to the tailor shop during lunchtime."  
"He can make dresses that quickly?"  
"My dad makes absolutely stunning dresses and suits," boasted Ghastly. "I want to be just like him when I'm older. I've done some designs of my own as well."  
"Nice!" said Liv. "Let's see!"  
The two of them sat together, discussing the dresses, Anton sitting solemnly across from them, watching silently, but appeared to be vaguely interested. Saracen and Dexter turned to chat to each other. Out of the corner of her eye, Valkyrie noticed them flirting slightly and remembered how they were interacting earlier that week.  
"Skul?"  
"Mmhm?"  
"Is it just me or do Saracen and Dexter have a thing for each other?"  
He peered round her head to look at the two boys that were now flicking beans at each other. "I like to say that they have an on-and-off relationship. During the holidays, they are practically inseparable, but during the school term they just end up trying to get as many dates as possible. It's a game for them. The one that has gone out with the most people in the school at the end of each term wins a point."  
"Right." Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. "Why don't they just accept the fact that they like each other?"  
Skulduggery gave her a small smile. "No one ever accepts the idea that they like each other, particularly people like Saracen and Dexter, who like to flirt. I doubt they will ever settle down with each other, just will go back to each other when they need to."  
"I suppose."  
Suddenly, Skulduggery stood. "Come on. We might be able to sort out this dress for you before lessons even start if we go now."  
Valkyrie stood, and they walked out together. "I'm presuming you are on good terms with Mr Iagan if your going to be allowed to go before lessons start."  
"You could say that. I'm one of his top students and Ghastly is his top student. I generally get away with it."  
They walked together to a musty classroom on the first floor. Inside was Mr Iagan, a man who was shorter than Valkyrie (but not quite as short as September). They were lucky that Valkyrie, Skulduggery and Ghastly had made a good impression on him initially; he didn't particularly like many of the children at the school, so the fact he liked them was almost a miracle.  
They entered the room quietly, in case he didn't want to be disturbed.  
"Sir? May we speak to you a moment?"  
He jolted, not expecting them to have been there. He turned around to yell at them, but as soon as he recognised them properly, the anger fell from his face.  
"Mr Pleasant and Miss Cain! How nice to see you two! How may I help you?"  
"Valkyrie needs a dress for this evening and I was wondering whether you could take us to Mr Darning's Tailor shop?"  
"Only the best for Miss Cain! Of course." They all held hands and suddenly they were standing on a muddy road right in front of a weatherworn cabin that hand no labels, only the faint outline of lettering on a sign hanging above the door. It was drizzling slightly and she shivered as a gust of wind gave her goose bumps. "I have a bit of work to do before the lessons start, so I'll pick you two up in fifteen minutes, okay?"  
They nodded and then Skulduggery guided her to the door of the tailors. The door creaked open, but over the sounds of the wind and rain, Val could hear the faint popping sound of Iagan teleporting back to the school.  
"He will remember us, right?"  
"Of course," Skulduggery assured her. "He's only forgotten me once."  
"Not entirely reassuring, but there we are."  
Skulduggery smirked and then called into the depths of the dusty and slightly cold room. "Mr Darning?"  
"Skulduggery Pleasant?" came a voice in the shadows. "Is that you?"  
"Hello, sir! A dress is required for this fine lady here. Is it possible for it to be finished in time for the ball this evening?"  
Mr Darning, who I could only presume was Ghastly's father, came into the dim light of the oil lamp that was hung in the middle of the room. "Hello, young lady! You must be new!"  
Valkyrie nodded, a little shyly. Darning was the sort of person that intimidated people slightly, not unlike Mr Bliss, who had always terrified Val. He had a robust figure, one that Ghastly had inherited, and the same sharp jawline as his son.  
"Pleased to meet you, sir," she said, holding out her hand, deeming the gesture appropriate. Val had still not caught on with all of the manners, but had coped so far. She was grateful when he took the hand, shaking it gently and smiled at her warmly. "My name is Valkyrie Cain."  
"Good choice. It seems to suit you, although at the moment you are acting like a little mouse."  
Valkyrie smiled. "Sorry. I have just met you."  
"That's true. I can't make a dress from scratch to have ready by this evening, but you can choose a dress from the ones in the back and I can adjust it to your measurements."  
"That would be wonderful!"  
Darning pointed to a door and gave her a candle. Inside was a whole array of dresses, all beautiful in their own way. Most were made from soft silks and velvets, others from materials she couldn't place. But the dress that caught her eye was a cream ball gown, trimmed with silver and gold. She pulled it away from the others, careful not to let it near the candle, but held it close enough that she could see the dress in detail. The fabric seemed to shimmer as the light of the flame hit it, enhancing the whole material.  
"I knew you had a good eye for clothes."  
Valkyrie jumps at the voice in the doorway, but found it to be only Darning, who was smiling happily at the fine dress. "It is very beautiful."  
"It's one of my masterpieces. I've been hording it in the back room, only allowing someone who would notice it in amongst the other dresses to have it. You've been the first person in fifty years to notice that dress."  
"Seriously?" Valkyrie was shocked. "How can someone not notice this?"  
"I enchanted it. Only a person who really deserves it can notice it. I think it's a shame I now have to part with it, but I trust the spell I cast and figure that it shouldn't stay unadmired any longer."  
"It's so gorgeous."  
"Come on. I'll give you a discount price as well."  
"No, not for this beauty!"  
Darning smiled. "I insist."  
Skulduggery had been wandering around outside. "You found one then?" he asked. When Darning showed him the dress, his jaw dropped open. "Since when did you make clothes for the Queen?"  
Darning laughed slightly. "I always make dresses for Queens. This one, however, is made for a Goddess."  
"Don't flatter me," said Valkyrie, blushing deeply. "I'm not that pretty."  
"Fine," said Skulduggery, the cheeky look playing in his eyes. "Hello ugly toad."  
"Actually, now that I come to think of it, can someone call me a Goddess again? I think I felt my ego inflate."  
They all laughed. Valkyrie brought out her little purse to pay for the dress (Liv had given her some money just in case), but Skulduggery stopped her. "I'm going to pay."  
"Are you joking?"  
"No. I asked you out, therefore I pay."  
Valkyrie's smile grew even bigger.


	15. In Which Dance Lessons Take Place

Skulduggery paid for the gown and they both went back outside to leave Darning to start on the dress to have it completed by lunchtime. It wasn't long until Mr Iagan appeared in front of them again and the short time they had spent waiting for them was filled with them chatting about stuff.  
Iagan took them back to the school and they went together to their first lesson. It was en-route when Valkyrie stopped suddenly, her stomach plummeting in dread.  
"China is in our art class, isn't she?"  
Skulduggery frowned at her. "Yes. And?"  
"You rejected her, correct?"  
"Yes, otherwise I wouldn't be taking you."  
"So, she is going to be so annoyed at me! Shoot!"  
"Calm down, she's not going to try and kill you!"  
Valkyrie gave him the look. "Has she ever been rejected before?"  
Skulduggery pondered a while. "No, I don't think she has. Well, I'll correct myself. She won't try and kill you when you are around other people."  
"Skulduggery, have you ever tried sympathy before? Or reassurance?"  
"I just did."  
"No, you didn't."  
"Oh."  
"Okay, so I now have to survive until the end of the day, which may prove to be tricky because it's China."  
"You don't regret it, do you?"  
"What?"  
"Me asking you out."  
Valkyrie laughed. "Aww, are you being insecure?"  
"Am not."  
"Of course I don't regret it. Just the idea that China may decide to brutally murder me is a little terrifying, admit it."  
"I suppose, although the likelihood of her attempting it in a crowded environment is low."  
"Again, I think you need to practice the art of reassurance. It does wonders when picking up girls."  
Skulduggery frowned. "I'm not going to cheat on you."  
"Good, no need to practice it then." Valkyrie smiled a sunny smile and skipped into the classroom ahead of him leaving him standing puzzled in the doorway.

Liv noted China's angry glare at Valkyrie the moment the black-haired elemental danced into the classroom. This was the moment Valkyrie made China her enemy and the purple girl stored the expression into her memory concerning Val.

"Seeing as it is the Winter Ball tonight and all those attending are expected to have at least one dance with their partner, I think today we will all refresh our memories and remember how to dance again."  
They were all stood, facing Miss Crow in the Duelling Hall.  
"This is where the ball will be held. Now, I know the majority of you are aware of how the ball works but I know that Miss Estrange and Miss Cain are both new to the school and don't know the dance etiquette we have. Therefore, for the benefit of everyone, today is a crash course on dance." Crow was now pacing up and down. "Who here, believe they are a confident dancer?"  
All of the Dead Men, a number of other boys and a lot of my new girlfriends put their hands up. September was the only one who was shaking her head sincerely, mouthing "I can't dance" to the floor.  
"Now," continued Crow. "The people who have a dance partner for the actual Ball tonight in the other group, please pair up."  
I smiled brightly at Skulduggery, walking over. "It seems we meet again Pleasant."  
"Doesn't it seem like the world is making us be together, Cain?"  
"It does indeed."  
They waited as Crow paired the remaining people with those left over, ensuring that all of the not so confident dancers were with a more skilled dancer.  
"I think you'll be happy to know that I am the best dancer in the entire school."  
"Is this a challenge so I can steal your reputation again, just like the "Best Fighter in the School" award?"  
Skulduggery snorted, rather ungracefully, earning a sharp glare from Crow. "Please refrain from making animal noises, Mr Pleasant. It's not dignified."  
"Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am."  
Crow went onto explain the basic steps for dancing. Skulduggery was not exaggerating when he said he was good at dancing and soon Valkyrie had mastered the basics and Skulduggery was showing her all the different prompts that were cues for different moves. They twirled around the hall together, passing Anton and Liv who were primly waltzing, Anton having the beginnings of a smile creeping onto his face. Dexter and Saracen kept pulling faces at each other as they whirled past, their dance partners looking slightly bemused. Elena and Elysia had not got paired up with them because all four of them were confident dancers. Instead, they were with these other students who kept on stepping on their toes (except Saracen's partner, who had more of grasp of the waltz and foxtrot). Ghastly stood with September, the height difference so extreme it made Valkyrie giggle slightly at the sight of Twinkletoes (September nickname) trying to stand as tall as she could and Ghastly trying to slouch, but not look like he was slouching. Crow kept fluttering past them to correct their stance.  
Erskine had been put with another girl that Valkyrie knew was called Trivia Kite, but didn't really know. Both Skulduggery and Valkyrie were both amused to see that he kept hovering around China, who was shooting daggers at Valkyrie. They both ignored China and continued to twirl, Val feeling more and more confident in her steps the more they danced together. The skeleton Skulduggery had once given her a crash course in dancing just before the Requiem Ball, so it wasn't an entirely foreign thing she had to learn, but it was good to know she had remembered some of Skulduggery's lesson.  
"I think we'll look fabulous tonight," Skulduggery told her, as he took in everyone else's dancing.  
"I doubt it."  
"With you in that dress? Yes we will. I will remind you that I am going to be looking fabulous tonight as well."  
"Mmhm, well, we'll see."


	16. In Which The Girls Are Chased In Heels

The six girls crowded into Valkyrie and Skulduggery's room that evening, Twinkletoes waving her make up at them whilst Liv was explaining that she was an expert at hair.  
"Val, what dress did you pick?" Elysia asked as she threw her gown onto the bed, a deep green dress that looked almost black that contrasted her hair perfectly. It had black, floral beadwork on the bodice that shimmered in the light.  
Valkyrie pulled out the dress from the wardrobe that she and Skulduggery had picked up after the end of lessons. They all gasped.  
"Oh, that is a beauty!" exclaimed Elena, who was holding her own dress, a dark blue that shimmered with many different blues. "That is going to look absolutely amazing!"  
"I know!"  
September's dress was a deep red, edged with black that swept all the way down to the floor. Liv's dress was a dark purple which matched her skin tone and hair colour very well without clashing. It came with matching gloves and shoes.  
"Right! We need to get ourselves looking fabulous in less than two hours," said Livena, standing on Skulduggery's bed, taking charge. "Seeing as there is five of us, we need some sort of order so we all get helped by someone. Valkyrie, you can do make up, right?"  
Valkyrie nodded. "I just can't do hair."  
"Twinkletoes, you can also do make up, right?"  
"Best in the school! You can barely notice that it is there it's so good."  
"Stop boasting," Liv giggled, good-naturedly. "I can do hair, Elena?"  
"I can do both."  
"Ely?"  
"Same, although I'm not one hundred percent confident on make up. I always end up messing one thing up."  
"Okay, let's do hair first so that when we come to do make up, our hair doesn't get in our face."  
Liv decided to work on Valkyrie whilst Ely started fixing up September's hair and Elena beginning to put make up on the shortest girl. It took less than fifteen minutes for Twinkletoes' hair and make up to get finished (they had decided to pin it up into an artful bun and continued with the red and black colour scheme for the make up). Valkyrie's hair had been left loose, but Liv had crimped the tips so that they curled artfully. She pinned the strands of hair that got in her face back to make it easier to dance without flicking her hair into her own face. In her hair, Liv had stuck in some pins that had glass jewels stuck to them. They twinkled as she moved, enhancing her long beautiful hair.  
They swapped around, ensuring that each of the girls had their make up and hair sorted out to suit what they were wearing, the whole process taking less than an hour. They helped each other to get into their dresses, tightening corsets and bodices and ensuring the ball gowns fell correctly.  
"What shall we do now?" Val asked them. "There is still an hour to the dance."  
"We can go to the sitting space," Ely suggested. "Most of the girls go there if they have time to spare before a ball. The guys aren't allowed in that area for the whole afternoon so they don't see their partners until the beginning of the ball."  
They all agreed with the idea, although Valkyrie felt a bit hesitant. What if China was there? She shook the thought away, following the girls out into the corridor.  
The room was a large, comfortable space that was one of the warmer areas of the school as it had a roaring fire in the hearth and rugs that helped to prevent draughts. Ely was right in saying the girls went here. The room was crowded with people, most of the perched on the chairs that were scattered around or stood near to the fire to stay warm. Valkyrie spotted China, who was gossiping with her friends in the corner closest to the blaze. As soon as they made eye contact, her eyes narrowed in anger. She broke away from her girls, striding quickly over to the door where Valkyrie, Ely, Lena, Liv and Twinkle were still standing.  
"Now," China said, in her sultry voice. "Why would Skulduggery reject me for an ugly little toad like you? It certainly wasn't for looks, that's for sure."  
Valkyrie noticed all her friends open their mouths to say something to the willowy girl who was glaring at her in contempt, but Val spoke before they could say anything.  
"I didn't know Skulduggery was interested in bitches or people who wear dresses that have a neckline almost lower than their boobs." She gave Sorrows a pointed look, smiling cheerfully at the now seething girl before sweeping past her, followed by her friends, to a cosy corner that still had empty seats near a curtained window.  
"Nice comeback," Liv said, laughing slightly at China, who was now storming back to her friends. "She completely deserved that."  
Valkyrie glanced back and noticed that China was now pointing at her from across the room, her friends turning around to get a look at her. She was surprised to note that they were now all glaring at her. Valkyrie turned back around to ignore them.  
"How many girls has Skulduggery had?" she asked.  
Ely gave her a slightly sympathetic look. "The majority of the girls in the year group. China's friends have all been dated by him, even China for a little while. It's probably why they are beginning to wander over here."  
Elena noticed the terrified expression that settled on Valkyrie's face. "Don't worry, love. I think Skulduggery might be serious when it comes to you. I've never seen him so unconsciously attracted to someone."  
"That's the trick," Twinkle put in. "If you notice that someone is trying really hard to impress you to the extent that he behaves differently, then they are not being sincere. Skulduggery tends to lose his character when he is with other girls, but with you he retains his natural character. It's why we haven't felt it necessary to warn you away from him."  
Liv stood up suddenly. "You may be the best fighter in school, Val, but for the sake of your dress and our efforts to make you look pretty for tonight, I think we might need to leave."  
Valkyrie nodded, a little dumbly and allowed Liv to help her up, the five of them leaving through the nearest door to evade China's gaggle.  
"Come on, we need to get to a teacher so that they don't try anything," said Ely.  
Lena gave a little squeal. "My shoe fell off guys. I hate heels!"  
"Take them off!" yelled Twinkle. "Quickly!"  
Lena stooped to pull off her heels, running to catch up with them just as China and her girls rounded the corner.  
"Valkyrie Cain!" China yelled. "Stop right there!"  
"Not a chance!" Valkyrie yelled over her shoulder. "I'm not in the mood for a fight over a guy just to get bruises for no reason whatsoever!" Pulling off her own heels mid-run, she burst into a full on sprint, closely followed by her other friends that were also peeling off their shoes. Val vowed to never wear heels again and instead stick to boots.  
They managed to outrun them by ducking into an empty classroom. Pausing to catch their breaths, they checked that their hair was still nice and their dresses didn't get damaged in the chase.  
"I am so glad this dress didn't get torn," Liv muttered to them, pulling on her heels again. "Come on, the ball is in fifteen minutes. Let's head down to the entrance."  
Ducking their heads out to make sure that there was no one in the corridor, they made their way down to the duelling hall where the ball was to take place. Their shoes clacked noisily on the floor and they half expected someone to jump out at them from round a corner.  
"I think it's fair to say that you will not be going anywhere near China until she has cooled off," Ely murmured, breaking the long, tense silence.  
"Can we not talk about her, please?" Valkyrie mumbled. She was still in shock about the whole fiasco, not expecting China to make a move in a public area.  
"She's not thinking rationally, Val," Lena assured her. "As soon as it has blown over, she'll probably become less rash and will be less likely to attack you publicly."  
"So what will happen when I'm alone?"  
"You won't ever be alone, Valkyrie," Twinkle told her, hugging her arm.  
The look Liv gave her told her otherwise.


	17. Which Concerns The Winter Ball

Valkyrie managed to put the whole problem behind her for the time being as the five girls approached the entrance to the ballroom. Alexis wandered over, looking quite beautiful in a sleek, ruby red gown and they made small talk concerning her elemental studies; she had been giving her theory lessons so that Val could gain more knowledge as to how she could exploit her discipline further.  
They did not need to wait long before the double doors to the duelling hall opened suddenly. All the girls swarmed to be the first in the room, but Valkyrie hung back to avoid the surging crowd. She ended up being one of the last to enter the room and she gazed at the transformation of the massive room.  
For one, it looked smaller than normal. Curtains of a velvet red were hung around the edges, cutting about twenty metres away from the main room. Between the curtains and the wall were tables lit by candles. The tables had all been laid beautifully. This was definitely the most extravagant ball she had ever been to and it was certain that it would be better than the one she went to with Fletcher during the Christmas of the Remnants.  
It didn't feel like she had stepped into the actual duelling hall until she got past the inner layer and passed the red curtains. The wooden floor had been polished since her last duelling lesson and the roof had been enchanted to look like it was the clear night sky. The curtains around the edge gave the room character and made it feel less empty as the room generally felt really open and large. In the centre, there was an open fire and a huge pig was being roasted gently over the flames. The fire was small, but was enough to keep the room warm as well.  
As she was marvelling at the beauty of the now very charismatic room filled with the older students in the school as well as nearly all the teachers, Skulduggery had snuck up behind her, grabbing her waist and pulling her to his side without crumpling her dress. Valkyrie yelped in surprise, slapping him lightly around the head when she realised it was only him.  
"Don't do that!" she scolded him.  
"Just because you didn't like it doesn't mean I didn't," Skulduggery teased back. "Your look of surprise was rather amusing actually."  
Valkyrie rolled her eyes as he took her hand and lead her to the dance floor, a ring of space around the fire that was where people could dance and not get too warm or get cold.  
"You look beautiful, by the way," he told her, getting into his stance.  
"Thank you!" She gave him a wide smile. "I'm glad I didn't have to punch China otherwise this dress would be ruined."  
"Oh, what did she do?" Skulduggery asked, not sounding too worried as the little string quartet tucked in the corner of the room began playing a fast paced piece.  
"She confronted me, I insulted her and she ended up chasing Ely, Lena, Liv, Twinkle and I around the school, tailed by her gaggle." Listening to the music, they smoothly began to dance in time with the piece. "Thankfully, we have better stamina than them and we were smart enough to take off our heels."  
"Sounds like you have it all under control," he told her as he pulled her into a spin. "I think China should be afraid of getting attacked by you, because if she goes on at this rate, you will certainly be annoyed enough to attack her."  
Valkyrie laughed slightly at this and they were silent for a while as she tried to get into the flow of dancing. Skulduggery was confident enough and was able to make her dancing look much better than it really was. He seemed to understand when the music would slow down enough to dip her or speed up enough to lift her into short spin. Her dress also flattered her appearance and fluttered accordingly, not rising high enough to look indecent (in their eyes) but enough to make it look like she was simply floating around the room. As she gained enough confidence to be able to concentrate on both dancing and conversing she asked who Ghastly and Erskine had asked to the dance.  
"I know that Saracen and Dexter asked Lena and Ely and that Anton is somewhere with Liv, but I never found out who the other two were taking."  
"Ghastly asked Twinkletoes, mostly because neither of them had a date and yet they both wanted to be here to spend the last day of this school term together with all of us," Skulduggery told her, effortlessly guiding her into a complicated twirl that Valkyrie only just managed to pull off. "Erskine has been asking China since the beginning of the school year and she only said yes this morning after I rejected her. I guess it's because he is friends with me and I am the person the girls, some of the guys even, all want to date."  
"I bet that's why your ego is the size of the moon."  
"The moon is puny in comparison to my ego."  
"Clearly, being egotistical has never been viewed as one of your negative traits in your eyes."  
"No," Skulduggery told her, chest puffing in pride. "My parents told me that you have to be confident and happy with yourself before you start thinking about others. The most important thing is my happiness before I start to think about other peoples' happiness."  
"They can't have told you then that there are boundaries when it comes to self-obsession," Valkyrie smirked.  
"I can be caring!" he yelped, a little indignantly. "Look, are you happy at the moment?"  
"Very."  
"I call that a success. I made you happy, most because I am happy myself."  
"Maybe we need to take this conversation away from how great you are for a little bit before someone kills you."  
The piece was beginning to slow down and Valkyrie realised it was the end of the piece. Skulduggery twirled her one last time, helping Valkyrie into her finishing pose just as the tune came to a close. There was a smattering of clapping, not very loud and Skulduggery whispered to Valkyrie that she needed to curtsey to the quartet. She managed to manoeuvre herself into place and curtsied at the right moment whilst Skulduggery gave a small bow next to her.  
"I think that might actually the first time I have properly danced."  
"You did quite well then. By you actually I mean I did fabulous."  
"Please get over yourself," Valkyrie told them as they walked off to the edge of the dance floor. "Just for tonight."  
"An hour?"  
"Better than nothing I suppose."


	18. In Which Erskine Throws A Hissy Fit

Skulduggery lead her to a table where she saw Anton and Liv perched, Liv cheerily chatting to him, Anton unabashedly staring at her, occasionally responding to her questions. They both sat up when Skulduggery and Valkyrie sat down, Anton looking slightly sheepish and stopped gazing at Liv so openly.  
"Val, I lost you at the door! I'm glad you found Skulduggery without much problem."  
"Where are the others?"  
Liv pointed at Ely and Lena who were being escorted over by Dexter and Saracen. "They are coming over now and September is over there." She pointed in the other direction at Twinkle who was chatting with Ghastly, dawdling over.  
"What about Erskine?"  
"With Sorrows," Anton remarked, a sneer in his voice as he said China's name, pointing out the two who were waltzing on the dance floor dramatically. Erskine looked absolutely infatuated with her, but China kept looking away from him, looking slightly disgusted as he tried to kiss her.  
"Ew," Val grimaced. "Not a good sight."  
"Nope," Liv agreed.  
The others finally came to sit down at the table. Valkyrie turned to Lena and Ely asking what Dexter and Saracen were like.  
"They're okay, I suppose," Lena said, looking at the two boys who had sat at the other end of the table together. "It's just clear that they like each other and only really asked us two out because they knew us and we were available."  
"They purposely keep passing each other on the dance floor to make eyes at each other," Ely told her. "It's quite cute really, but it does mean that they aren't really that interested in us."  
They all laughed. "We should really try and get them together," Twinkle decided.  
"I don't think that is possible," Valkyrie told them. "Skulduggery told me that whilst they like each other, they are natural flirts and he doubts they would ever settle down together."  
Ely shrugged her shoulders. "We can always try. But, he has a point. We live for so long that dedicating ourselves to one person only for the rest of eternity would probably be difficult."  
"Some people manage well enough."  
"They don't have the same personalities as the boys though."  
"Good point."  
They made small talk, giggling at Erskine as he tried to come onto China again and how she slapped his face and walked off behind the curtain, probably to sit down in a dark corner. They all watched as Erskine staggered over, slightly tipsy after drinking some alcohol, and slumped into the empty seat in between Skulduggery and Anton, starting to talk about how mean China had been for the entire evening.  
"She likes you, Skulduggery," he was beginning to shout and Valkyrie realised in slight horror that Erskine was very angry. She stood up, watching in disbelief as the Dead Men laughed at him, not really noticing Erskine's rage that was building up. Marching over quickly, she pulled Erskine out of his seat and away from Skulduggery. He was about to turn around and punch her, but his reflexes were slow, giving Valkyrie enough time to dodge the blow and pull him into a headlock.  
"Calm down. Skulduggery isn't interested in China."  
The others were all silenced at the sudden turn of events and watched as Valkyrie calmed Erskine down enough to release him from the lock. They all looked a bit baffled, Skulduggery watching her closely, trying to work out what had just happened.  
"I'll take him to his room to cool off," Valkyrie told them. "I won't be long."  
She linked her arm around Erskine's, half-dragging him out of the ballroom, not noticing China watching in the shadows.

"What just happened?" Ely asked Skulduggery.  
"I don't really know," Skulduggery replied, watching Valkyrie and Erskine leave the room. "Should I go after her?"  
Liv gave a snort. "Did you guys not noticed how angry Ravel was getting?" she asked them.  
They all shook their heads.  
"Typical. Erskine was clearly jealous of you, Skul, because China likes you, not him. How could you not notice that?"  
"Erskine isn't known for being faithful," Saracen remarked. "I've never seen him so bothered about a girl."  
"But he gets jealous. It is a natural thing for people to feel."  
"Wait, where did Dexter and Saracen go?" Ely interrupted.  
They all looked around, trying to spot where they had got to before Lena started to giggle.  
"Found them," she said, trying to stifle her laughter whilst simultaneously attempting to point out the two boys who had managed to tuck themselves in a corner behind a fold of the curtain, but despite the fabric blocking their view slightly, it was obvious that the two were kissing each other rather aggressively.  
Ghastly sighed. "They do this every time," he muttered, standing up abruptly. "Just a second."  
They were all struggling not to laugh as Ghastly marched over to the pair, pulled them apart and dragged them back over to the table.  
"Hi guys," Saracen said, as they both sat down in their seats, slightly ruffled with swollen lips. "How have you been?"  
Lena let out a chuckle that she had been keeping in for some time and at that moment the flood gates opened. They all sat laughing hysterically, except Ghastly, who was still trying to look at them disapprovingly.  
"You could at least have the decency to tell your dates that you aren't interested before you go and have sex in a corner." But even Ghastly couldn't maintain stony faced and they all succumbed to their mirth.


	19. In Which A Tactical Error Is Made

"Which room are you in, Erskine?" Valkyrie asked the golden eyed boy, who was still red in the face with anger.  
"Four Zero Eight," he mumbled. She steered him down the cold corridor to the other end and he pulled out the key from his front pocket. Unlocking the door, she guided him through into the empty room and laid him down on the bed she presumed to be his; the one that was covered in boys clothes rather than the pristine one.  
"Thanks, Valkyrie," he murmured, the rage dying in his eyes. "I overreacted a bit, didn't I?"  
"Not as bad as you could have done," she consoled him. "I generally punch people, but you didn't do that, did you?"  
"I suppose not."  
"See? You are okay."  
Erskine sat up, looking a lot better and less annoyed. "I'll go wash my face."  
"You do that," she said, perching on the chair in the corner of the room. "I'll wait here and then we can go back downstairs. When you are ready."  
He wandered off into the backroom and Valkyrie kicked some of his underwear under the bed so it was out of her sight. She didn't really want to be looking at it. She passed the time by humming "Love Bites" by Halestorm, realising that it was the first time in a month since she had heard some of her favourite rock music. The classical music of the era was beginning to give her a headache.  
There were lots of little things about the 21st Century that she desperately missed. For one, the music, because she had never been a classical fan, always into the rock, bordering the gothic genre. She also hated the toilet arrangements, being used to flushing toilets and nice toilet paper. She hated toilets enough in the future (or past, whatever) without them being little holes in the ground outside in a cold wooden shed.  
Every week she would find a new thing that she realised she couldn't actually do anymore, like eat takeouts or have a ride in the Bentley (or even a car, for that matter). But she was managing. It wasn't hell, like she had initially been expecting it to be.  
Erskine walked out of the backroom, breaking her trance and she stood up really quickly. "You want to go back down to the ball?"  
He nodded. She linked arms with him again and they headed out the room again.

They were near the duelling hall and Valkyrie had been chatting idly to Erskine, talking about how her theory lessons had been when the golden eyed boy suddenly pulled her into an alcove near a window. There was a light snow falling that she could just see by the light of the dim candle that was shining from the wall opposite. He pulled her really close by the waist and he was suddenly kissing her.  
It wasn't a chaste kiss, which is all Valkyrie had ever really done with her previous boyfriends, so she was completely flummoxed when Erskine started to move his lips against hers in an overly passionate manner. As soon as she got herself to realise that she did not want to be kissing Erskine at all, she began to struggle out of his grip. He clung onto her dress tightly and she hit her head against the wall behind her as she tried to pull away from him.  
"Stop!" she finally managed to gasp out when they finally broke apart. "What are you doing?" Her protests were ignored and he tried to dive back in for another kiss, but she got herself to pull him into an arm lock, pushing him up against the other wall. "When I say stop, you stop," she ground out, her blood boiling in anger. "If you try to kiss me again, you will probably find yourself being thrown through a window. Understand?"  
Erskine struggled to nod and he was beginning to whimper in pain. She let go of his arm and ran down to the big double doors that led to the duelling hall, tears threatening to spill over.  
Liv looked up to see Valkyrie racing through the doors of the hall and knew instantly what had happened. She leapt up, dashing over to the girl who was now crying freely and tried to lead her back out.  
"Don't," she whispered. "He's still out there."  
"Okay." She shifted her course, dragging her to a private corner and waited for Erskine to walk through the doors. She ignored the looks she was getting from Skulduggery, the girls and the other Dead Men, concentrating on getting Valkyrie up to her room without having to confront Erskine yet.  
Erskine marched in not long after, looking a little bit ruffled and sullen. He didn't notice the two of them as she stood Valkyrie up again and when they slipped through the double doors behind him.  
"Don't worry, Val. It's going to be okay."  
"But is it really?" the girl half yelled. "So far, I've managed to piss off China, Erskine and Skulduggery, never mind the fact that I made up with Skul, and you are telling me it is going to be okay? It just sounds like I'm messing everything up?"  
Liv looked down, knowing that the question Valkyrie desperately needed the answer to was not one that she could tell her.  
"Why am I here, Liv? Why am I supposed to be going to school with younger versions of the Dead Men in the middle of the stupid War?"  
"I can't… I can't tell you."  
"YES, YOU CAN!"  
"No, I really can't!"  
"Then why not?" Valkyrie said, exasperated.  
Liv sighed, heavily. "You are very important, Val," she started. "More important in the history of magic than the average person is. The decision you are going to make will change everything and without it, the future would not be anywhere close to how you currently remember it to be. But I can't tell you want the decision is, otherwise that will hinder it completely; I know this because I consulted a Sensitive to see what the possible futures could be."  
"I can't be that important," she scoffed.  
Liv gave her a look. "You are one of the vital players in this next step, Val. Believe it and trust me."


	20. In Which A Window Is Broken

"I keep feeling as if we are out of the loop in some way, don't you?" Ely said, as they turned to watch Erskine march into the hall again, looking grumpy whilst Liv dragged Valkyrie back out of the room again behind the boy. They all looked expectantly at Ravel as he slumped down into Liv's empty seat.  
"What?"  
"What happened to Val?" Lena asked.  
"How am I supposed to know?"  
Skulduggery gave him an odd look. "You have been with her for the past fifteen minutes, right?"  
"Yes…"  
"So how do you not know what is wrong with her?"  
Ravel remained silent.  
"What did you do?" Ely said, the suspicion creeping into her voice.  
Erskine looked down, his face starting to go red, but whether it was from embarrassment, guilt or anger, they didn't know.  
"Come on," Anton mumbled, standing up. "We'll go ask Valkyrie instead."  
Everyone else followed, Skulduggery leading the group looking concerned. They were now beginning to get strange looks from the other students and even some of the teachers.

Erskine was only mildly surprised that his friends left him to check up on Valkyrie. Whilst he had known them for longer and had expected some sort of loyalty to him, he knew that the others had grown close to Valkyrie and would want to know what was wrong.  
He was feeling guilty, knowing that his actions earlier had been driven by jealousy, knowing China had no interest whatsoever in him. Skulduggery always managed to pull in all the girls without even trying and having Valkyrie so close to him made him snap. As soon as his head had cleared in the minute before he went back into the hall, he knew he had made a big mistake.  
He just wasn't sure how he was now going to explain why he lost control.

They had been sitting in Liv's room together for ten minutes when there came an insistent knocking at the door, a jumble of voices filtering through the thick wooden door. Liv pulled herself up from the bed where Valkyrie lay, who had only just stopped crying, and went to open the door.  
Everyone except Erskine was there, Skulduggery right at the front with a worried expression on his face.  
"What happened?" he asked.  
Liv pulled the door closed behind her to give Val a bit of time to clean up and turned to face them all. "Erskine kissed Valkyrie after she helped him calm down."  
"What?"  
She sighed. "He's jealous, as I told you, because you keep getting the girl," she told them, pointing at Skulduggery.  
"I didn't mean to."  
They all spun round to see Erskine standing at the end of the corridor. Skulduggery let out a small growl and the girls all glared at him.  
"She's yours and-"He struggled to find the words. "I was- I mean, I am… I was jealous and she was there and…" He let out a moan of frustration.  
Anton pushed past the others to get to the front of the group, walking towards Ravel, slowly and steadily. Erskine stood his ground, not backing away despite the terrifying look Shudder was now giving him.  
"You hurt Valkyrie and yet idolise China. I hate China. I like Valkyrie. Do you know how much effort it was to get Skulduggery and Valkyrie together? Now, because of your stupidity, you ruined a lovely night for the two of them, so they didn't kiss."  
Skulduggery was beginning to blush as Anton seriously described how much he liked him and Val as a couple. Erskine was now slowly beginning to back away, looking very nervous.  
"You will not go anywhere near Valkyrie until I think I can trust you not to ruin her relationships," Anton continued. "You will not kiss anyone's girlfriend or boyfriend again, because I will know. You will soon be thrown out of a window, because you deserve it." With these words, Shudder swiftly closed up the gap between him and Ravel, shoving them both backwards into the window behind them at the end of the corridor. They flew straight through, the glass shattering around them and the rest of the group watched in surprise as they fell and disappeared from view.  
"Well, that was unexpected," Ghastly said, still looking a bit shocked. They all ran over to the hole in the wall to see how far the boys had fallen.  
It had been snowing and looking down they saw that Shudder and Ravel had fallen into a deep bank of fresh snow. They all shivered as an icy breeze whistled through their clothes.

Erskine didn't go to Skulduggery and Ghastly's that evening. He got dropped of in a farm house in the middle of nowhere which Valkyrie presumed to be his home. Mr Iagan didn't pause to let her watch him going into the house, but teleported again to a small town. He seemed to be outside Mr Darning's shop again.  
"Have a good holiday!" Iagan told them as they thanked him for the lift. There was a soft pop that was barely audible in the heavy wind. They all struggled to walk, Liv clutching her arm as they supported each other. Dexter and Saracen were shoving each other out of the shelter of the huddle they had formed, causing Dexter to fall into a bank of snow. Skulduggery rolled his eyes and went to lift him out whilst Ghastly wacked Saracen around the head.  
"Can we at least try to get to Skul's as soon as we can? Otherwise we are all going to freeze!" Ghastly scolded them. "Flirt when we get there."  
They both nodded sullenly and they all pushed on through the snow. Valkyrie could felt the cold rim of her dress begin to freeze and the wind was beginning to get through the folds of her cloak. She pulled it around tighter.  
Skulduggery made a sharp turn and suddenly they were all on the porch of a cottage. He knocked on the door and it wasn't long before it was flung open by a woman with Skulduggery's green eyes.


	21. In Which Valkyrie Meets The Parents

The woman gave a smile, running forward and enveloping Skulduggery in a hug. "I'm glad you are home safe," she told him, releasing him and moving to hug Ghastly. "I hope you all had a good term," she continued to waffle, hugging all of the Dead Men in turn.  
"We had a lovely time, ma'am," Dexter replied in a flippant manner. "As always."  
She finally noticed Liv and Valkyrie tucked behind everyone else. The boys had already begun to enter the warmth of the house, but Skulduggery had stayed back. "Mother, this is Miss Valkyrie Cain and Miss Livena Estrange," he said, pointing to the two in turn. "They started at Ende this term and didn't have anywhere to go for the holiday, so we invited them here."  
The lady smiled at us. "Pleasure to meet you," she said, warmly, her eyes sparkling. "I'm Aura Osprey, Skulduggery's mother."  
"Thank you for letting us stay," Livena told her, as they all stepped into the house.  
"Oh, it's nothing. The more the merrier, I always say," Aura stated, cheerily. "We have plenty enough space as it is and I would want you two stuck in a cold castle for the entire holiday." Valkyrie shrugged off her damp cloak and hung it up with the others, but before she could walk into the next room, she felt an arm wrap around her waist and she was pulled up against Skulduggery.  
"You okay," he asked her, leaning down to murmur into her ear.  
"I'm good," she tried to say as calmly as possible, but she felt her voice hitch in her throat.  
"Not distressed about Erskine still?"  
"No. He was jealous. I don't feel anything towards him in that way and I won't be seeing him for a while. I think that's plenty enough time to forget the whole incident."  
Skulduggery nodded, leading her into the next room. "This is the parlour," he told her. "It's the main room of the house."  
"Skulduggery?" came a low voice from behind the two of them.  
They turned around to face a tall, rather broad man with hazel eyes and a heavy beard. "Hello, father," Skulduggery said, a little meekly.  
"Who are the two girls you have brought with you?"  
Valkyrie tried not show her nervousness. "I am Valkyrie Cain, sir," she said, looking the man directly in the eye. "That is my cousin, Livena Estrange. Your son was kind enough to invite us over for the holiday, because we don't have anywhere else to stay."  
The man took a good look of the two of them. Val remembered that she was still wearing the rather beautiful ball gown from earlier, although it was a bit damp at the hem. She pulled the shawl that she had grabbed out of the bag tighter around herself. Just as she was about to think that he was going to turn them out into the cold, he gave a gentle smile. "Nice to meet you, Miss Cain and Miss Estrange. My name is Roshan Adamos."  
"Please, call me Valkyrie."  
"You can call me Roshan then."  
He bade her and Liv sit down near the fireplace with the other Dead Men, and they all began to recount their time at Ende. Skulduggery told his parents how skilled Valkyrie was at fighting, amusing Roshan to no extent as he explained that he got beaten up several times over the term because of her.  
It was then that the conversation took a slightly darker turn. "What is the situation like concerning Mevolent, father?" Skulduggery tentatively asked.  
Roshan sighed. "I'm not going to lie to you," he said. "It's not looking good for us at the moment. Mevolent's army is much bigger than we anticipated and he has some of the most blood-thirsty generals in charge. We thought it was going to be over, but it is looking like this might be a much longer war."  
"So far, only some of the weaker Sanctuaries have collapsed, but ours, the African and Australian Sanctuaries are the only ones that seem to be able to stand a charge. The English Sanctuary is barely standing and the small American Sanctuary has almost been annihilated. I think we might need a miracle."  
"I want to fight when I get out of school," Dexter stated. "I don't want my parents to have died in vain. They fought in the war to protect me and I want to honour that."  
"We should all team up," Saracen said. "We would make an epic team."  
"True," Ghastly agreed.  
Aura suddenly stood up. "You would make fabulous fighters in the army. But I think we've been talking for too long. Ghastly, take Dexter and Sarcen to your house, I'm sure your parents are anxious to see you again. I'll get rooms for Anton and the girls."  
"Sure," Ghastly said, standing up, followed closely by Saracen and Dexter. "Thank you for having us, ma'am, sir."  
We saw them off, noting that Saracen and Dexter had resumed flirting as they disappeared into the wind. Ghastly was throwing slightly annoyed glances back at us before the door closed to stop the heat escaping.  
"We have one spare room," Aura told them. "Skulduggery's sister has a room, but I don't think you would want to share a room with a two year old."  
"You have a sister?" Valkyrie couldn't help but exclaim. "You didn't tell me this."  
"Never had the right moment to," Skulduggery explained. "You don't just bring it up randomly."  
"You'll meet her in the morning," Roshan said. "She adores meeting new people."  
"I figure you girls can share and Anton can bunk in with Skulduggery, which is what usually happens," Aura went on. "The beds are quite big, so I don't think you'll object to sharing, no?"  
Skulduggery intercepted. "Ah, yes. Valkyrie has been my roommate for the term, mother."  
Aura raised an eyebrow. "Right," she said, an edge in her voice. "He's been a gentleman, hasn't he, Valkyrie?"  
Valkyrie nodded, a little confused as to why Aura was asking.  
"Not been rude in any manner, has he?"  
She finally understood what Skulduggery's mother had been implying. "He's been very nice and helped me with my hair in the mornings," Valkyrie quickly explained. "I've never been very good at doing my hair, but Skulduggery has been a great help."  
"That's good. Would you prefer to stay in Skulduggery's room?"  
"I was just thinking that Anton and Liv may want to share," Valkyrie said, raising her eyebrows slightly. "They are close, you see."  
Aura got the hint, thankfully. "Ah, I see. Well, by all means, make yourselves at home."  
Saying goodnight to Aura and Roshan, we all walked upstairs. Anton suddenly tapped me on the shoulder. "May I say thank you for that?"  
"Your welcome." Valkyrie smiled as Anton and Liv walked into the spare room, Anton helping the purple girl carrying her bags in.  
Skulduggery took her hand and led her through a different door. "This is my room."


	22. Which Involves Some Art

Valkyrie gazed round the room. It was simple, but there were paintings and drawings hung all over the walls, making it seem so much more personal as a space. The bed had a patchwork quilt thrown over it, making it look cosier and the rugs on the carpet added colour to the space, which would have been rather plain room. In the corner on the desk, Valkyrie noticed a couple of statues sitting on the surface and a huge stack of paper and pencils.  
"You like it?"  
"It's lovely," she said, smiling at him before moving to study the nearest painting. "I can't believe Aura and Roshan let us sleep in mixed gender rooms," she commented, as she looked closer at the art.  
"They don't mind," Skulduggery said. "They send me to a school that already has a policy of mixed gender roommates to promote gender equality. We could have already had sex so many times already without anyone knowing."  
Valkyrie studied the painting harder to avoid making eye-contact with Skulduggery, knowing that her face had gone bright red. "I suppose," she mumbled.  
"The magical society is pretty progressive in views in comparison to the mortal society. As long as it isn't blatantly obvious to the mortals that we are being so 'scandalous', most people don't care."  
She nodded, understanding, looking at the signature of the painting, wondering whether she knew the artist. She was puzzled to note that it was signed off with the name L.E. O'Connell. "Who's O'Connell?" she asked, turning round to face him finally.  
"Oh, well, that's me." Skulduggery looked a little bashful. "That's my given name. Lorcan Eamon O'Connell."  
"Seriously?" Valkyrie was not sure what to be most surprised about; what his given name was or his skills at painting. "I never would have guessed that," she chose to say. "The paintings are really good. Are all of these yours?"  
Skulduggery nodded. "I enjoy drawing. It's relaxing. I actually…" he broke away. "I've kind of wanted to draw you for a while now."  
Valkyrie turned to give him a puzzled look.  
"Not like that!" he exclaimed, looking a bit flustered. "You are just really pretty and- yeah…"  
He is adorable when he gets flustered, Valkyrie thought to herself. "It's okay," she said, out loud. "You can draw me if you want." She gestured to the ballgown. "This okay?"  
"That's… perfect." He reached for some paper and a number of pencils and told her to sit on the bed comfortably. He perched at the end without the pillows, leaning up against the wooden board at the foot of the bed whilst she shuffled onto the other end, kicking her boots off and curling her legs up underneath her.  
"Sit as still as you can."  
She nodded, focusing absentmindedly at a sketch that was on the wall behind him. It was of Ghastly, noticing the scars and his figure. Skulduggery had got it spot on, his stance being poised and rigid. Her eyes flickered to the sketches beside the one of Ghastly and found that Skulduggery had drawn all his friends and framed the images on the wall where he could see them. She was touched to see how close Skulduggery really was to his friends. They probably felt like brothers to him. Looking at the picture of Erskine, her stomach clenched at the idea that she may have destroyed their friendship.  
"Skulduggery?"  
"Mmhm?"  
"Don't stay mad at Erskine."  
His brow furrowed. "Why not?"  
"Because I don't want to feel like the one who ruined your friendship. He's a good guy. He just acts on his emotions, but it's China who is really the manipulative one."  
Skulduggery finally looked up at her properly. "I'm still annoyed at him, but it would take a lot for me to hate him truly. I don't like the fact that he upset you, nor the fact that he kissed you whilst I was technically on a date with you."  
They were silent for a bit longer.  
"Skulduggery?"  
"Yes?"  
"Do you like me?"  
"As in…?"  
"Yeah."  
"I do," he said, sincerely. "You've intrigued me ever since you turned up in my room."  
Valkyrie ducked her head, face flushing, before realising that she was supposed to be sitting still. "Oops!"  
"Nevermind," he dismissed. "I've finished anyway."  
Valkyrie shuffled over to admire the drawing. He had got her features and posture spot on, loving the way he enhanced her hair in the drawing and the contrasts between her skin tone and hair colour.  
"That is really pretty."  
"I'm quite proud of it myself," Skulduggery commented. "I'm tempted to put it on the wall with Ghastly and the others."  
It had gotten really late by then. Skulduggery helped her unpack her stuff, emptying one of his drawers to make space for her smaller articles of clothing and hanging the dress up behind the door. "We'll put it in the walk in wardrobe in the spare room tomorrow, okay?"  
They turned around to change, Valkyrie feeling a bit awkward, but she slipped into the nightgown anyway. It probably would have been less awkward with the skeleton Skulduggery; after all, he had seen her reflection naked, but this was a Skulduggery that she was still getting used to.  
She slid into the night gown, contemplating stuff.

She was in her nightgown again. Skulduggery could not think of anyone else who could make the unflattering nightclothes look good, but then again, neither he nor his friends had been lying when they said that she looked stunning.  
She gave him a smile that made his heart flip as she dragged her bedcover off the bed, wrapping it around her snugly. He used the brief moment whilst she was getting herself comfortable on the bed to compose himself and calmly asked if she had gone through the Surge yet, shuffling to perch on the bed as well.  
"No, not yet," said Valkyrie, fiddling with her hair slightly. "Have you?"  
Skulduggery shook his head. "It is supposed to be really painful. You get sent to Kenspeckle's ward where they keep an eye on you when it happens, but only the older students go through it generally, the ones over eighteen. It's really rare if it happens at our age."  
"Knowing me, I'll end up getting it soon."  
"Why do you say that?" Skulduggery frowned.  
Val sighed, running her hand through her hair, pulling it slightly out of her face. "I'm me, that's why. This is the sort of thing that ends up happening to me."  
"That's not exactly an answer."  
"I know it's not." She looked up at him and Skulduggery tried not to lose himself in her beautiful eyes. "You want me to tell you the truth?"

Despite everything, Valkyrie found herself saying, "You want me to tell you the truth?"  
Skulduggery nodded.  
Even if he wasn't the Skulduggery the Detective she had first met and fallen in love with initially, she trusted and loved Skulduggery the Student equally. He deserved to know. She had grown as close to the young Skulduggery as she was with the skeleton one.  
"I am from the future."


	23. Which Is Full Of Blankets And Joy

"I am from the future."  
Skulduggery stared at her, stunned into silence. Valkyrie was wringing her hands, looking agitated and flustered.  
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but I didn't know you that well, in this time anyway and…"  
"Wait, what do you mean, 'in this time'?"  
Val looked even more uncomfortable. "I know you, in the future, quite well. We're best friends."  
Skulduggery shifted, not really knowing how to react. "So how did you get here?"  
"Livena is a time traveller. It's her discipline. I come from the 21st Century and I got taken back to this time period because I am important. I don't know why I am here really; Livena is trying not to interfere too much by saying too much, but I needed you to know." She shifted the blankets on her shoulders around her tighter. "I can't take the secrecy anymore, but particularly not to you. You won't tell the others, will you?"  
"Of course not," Skulduggery assured and she instantly looked more relaxed. "But why me instead of Ghastly? Or Anton?"  
"Because you are my best friend. At least, you are in the future. I don't really know what you think of me at the moment."  
"You are definitely one of my close friends," he said. "We've known each other for a whole term and we are really close already, we have fun beating each other up during the combat lessons and we share a room. If that is not best friends, then I don't know what is."  
Valkyrie gave a wide smile and leaned over to hug Skulduggery. "Thank you," she whispered and they sat there together, talking about the future curled in the blankets.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't listening."  
Liv's voice was unpredictably calm as she looked up from her latest batch of sewing, her face looking intrigued.  
"I told him."  
"Oh. I thought you were about to say something I didn't know."  
"You knew I was going to tell him?"  
Liv gave her an amused smile. "Of course I did. What did I tell you the morning after we arrived?"  
Valkyrie half sighed. She hated being predictable. "That my decisions are mine, but you know what I decide."  
"Well done! What you did wasn't wrong. He deserves to know."  
"That's good; I was really scared I had done the wrong thing."  
"The reason I'm not telling you much at all about what you need to do is because I don't have to. I just need to double check more than anything that everything is going as it should, and correct the problems that do occur. So far none have occurred, so it shows that everything is running to plan and that my mission is going smoothly."  
Skulduggery was out with the other Dead Men, along with Mr Darning, who was in fact called Savage Darning, and Roshan on some sort of war meeting. They had been incredibly vague to the two of them, which annoyed Valkyrie slightly because she knew she could definitely be of help in the war effort with her level of power. But, as it was, they were sat in the living room near the fire sewing. Well, Liv was sewing. Valkyrie was failing to keep the threads from tangling, getting more and more frustrated as the material she was working on got more and more threadbare from the number of times she had unpicked threads poorly from the fabric. At one point, Liv plucked the sheet from her hand, telling Valkyrie to find something else to do.  
"I want to beat up Skulduggery."  
"He isn't here."  
"That's kind of why I want to punch him."  
"Go fight Ghastly's mum. She's a boxer."  
"I haven't met her yet."  
Liv looked puzzled and then your expression cleared. "Of course you haven't. Go help Aura with the cooking."  
"I can't cook."  
"Learn how to."  
She rolled her eyes at the purple girl, but obliged, getting up and moving into the kitchen.  
"Vallie!" came a cry from below her as a little toddler ran across to hug her knees.  
Valkyrie smiled, bending to pick up the little blonde haired girl with bright green eyes. "Hello, Joy!" she said. Joy was her nickname, because she had not taken a name yet. She had very similar features to Skulduggery, which amused her greatly because she often rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders in a manner identical to the annoying boy. She even did the same little head tilts when she was confused.  
She also had a very expansive vocabulary, as Valkyrie had found out in the couple of days of her stay at the O'Connell household.  
"Come help Mama cook! She's making pie!"  
"I think I will, but can I put you down?"  
"Yes! I want to show you my drawing first though."  
"Okay." Valkyrie let Joy drag her into the kitchen, bumping into Aura. "I'll help you in a moment," Val told her. "Joy just wants to show me her drawing."  
"Of course."  
On the slate was a drawing of a girl holding fire in her hand. Knowing that Aura and Liv were not elementals and that Joy had not yet developed her magical skills yet, she asked if it was a picture of her.  
"Yes! See, this is your magic and this is the pretty dress you were wearing yesterday."  
"I can see that! It's very lovely indeed."  
Joy looked back down at the slate. "You can go help Mama now. I'm going to do more drawing."


	24. In Which Saracen Gets A Bit Distracted

Saracen was seriously struggling to focus on the meeting; the words that were leaving Grand Mage Noxious' mouth were going in one ear and other the other.  
The problem?  
Dexter Vex.  
Saracen knew things. It was the discipline that he was currently practicing, but whilst he wasn't an extremely strong mind reader, meaning some details did not reach his mind, it was crystal clear what Dexter was thinking about and it was incredibly distracting for him.  
He forced his mind to ignore his blonde friend's thoughts and focused his mind back to the talk the Grand Mage was giving.  
"We are not currently aware of Mevolent's base, but we are pretty certain that it is still in Ireland. The African Sanctuary is trying to provide us aid, but keep losing track of their teleporters," the Grand Mage had been saying when Saracen finally managed to tune himself back into the discussion. "The Elders and I believe that it is necessary for us to send a group of people to scout the areas in Ireland that we know of that could be good hideouts for Mevolent and his army. We have some ideas of where to look, but we are in need of volunteers."  
Roshan stepped forward. "My son, Skulduggery, and his friends here are very capable young mages. Seeing as we are in need of scouts, but I doubt we can spare any of our older mages. We can rely on them to scout for us to allow our army to build up. They can buy us the time we need."  
They all looked at each other. Saracen gave Dexter a look, partially to try and tell him that he knew what he was thinking about and, on the other hand, trying to convey his surprise towards Roshan's proposal. He hadn't done a very good job at relaying his emotions to Dexter, who looked a little confused at his wiggling eyebrows and turned back towards the Grand Mage, resuming his incredibly distracting thoughts.  
Sigh  
"What do you say, gentlemen?" the Grand Mage asked.  
Skulduggery looked back at them, giving a shrug. Saracen nodded at him, along with all the others, except Anton, who kept a stony face. "I guess we can take the mission, if you want us to, Grand Mage," Skulduggery told Noxious, with his charm on, just in case.  
"Just one thing."  
"What's that, Grand Mage?"  
"You need a seventh person to go with you six," Noxious said. "Just to make sure."  
Saracen raised an eyebrow at the blatant superstition, rolling his eyes at the idea that it impacted missions in anyway.  
"Of course, Grand Mage," Skulduggery said and the meeting went on to explain the details of their first mission.

"So, who is going to be our seventh person, Skul?" Dexter asked as when they were all seated together in their carriage again.  
"Valkyrie."  
"Seriously?" Saracen asked.  
"It's not just because you like her, right?" Ghastly asked him.  
"Of course not," the green eyed boy half-yelled, indignantly. "She is genuinely a capable woman with strong powers and I think she would help us greatly."  
"What about Liv?" Erskine said, staring intently out of the window, still trying not to look at Skulduggery. "We can't just leave her alone for an unknown period of time."  
Anton sat up at the mentioning of Liv's name.  
"I don't think her skill set would help us," Skulduggery stated, not hiding the cold edge in his voice. "We can leave her with my mother if she wants, or we can send her to Ely or Lena's house, if she wants company."  
Anton slumped back again. "Makes sense," he muttered, not annoyed at the decision, but a bit sad at the idea that he would need to leave her for a while.  
"You're okay with that, right Anton?" Ghastly asked.  
"Absolutely fine."

It was late when they finally got home. Roshan took Anton and Skulduggery home, leaving Erskine with the others at Ghastly's house.  
Saracen and Dexter had a permanent room for the two of them in a room in the attic of the little tailor shop. The two of them practically raced upstairs, despite Ghastly's mother calling them back down to come and eat.  
"Let them go, mother," Ghastly told her. "They've been like this all day. I swear that if they got the chance to, they would have disappeared of to an alcove."  
"They really need to get together properly," Anastasia Ragnhailt muttered, as she started to dish out the soup into Ghastly, Erskine and Savage's bowls, ignoring the empty places.

As soon as the door closed, Saracen pulled Dexter towards him. "You have been so distracting all day," he murmured into the blonde's ear.  
"How is that?" Dexter said, kissing along the base of his neck.  
"Well, for one, you are undoubtedly the most good looking person I have seen so far," Saracen mumbled, rubbing Dexter's hair gently, guiding him over to the bed. "And secondly, you were having some incredibly interesting thoughts earlier today that meant my mind was not exactly focusing where it should have been."  
"How is the fact that you are able to read my thoughts my fault?"  
"You were having the thoughts." They fell onto the bed, kissing deeply, Dexter clutching the sheets, Saracen wrapping his arms around his body.  
At one point they broke away gently, shuffling so that they were facing each other, holding hands and smiling at the other.  
"Do you think we could ever have a long lasting relationship together?" Dexter asked suddenly.  
"I doubt it, knowing us."  
"I know, but we could always try."  
Saracen gave it some thought. "Maybe," he said eventually. "I just struggle to see it happening, knowing what we're like."  
Dexter sat up, looking a bit annoyed and slightly upset. "You mean, play boys?"  
The darker haired boy cringed inwardly. He hadn't meant to upset him. "Exactly that. We aren't really well known for being dedicated and faithful partners."  
"No, that's true." There was still a cool edge to his voice.  
Saracen hoisted himself up as well, looking a bit nervous, but fixing a look into the other's eyes. "We can keep coming back to us, if you want-"  
"I do."  
"But we can also try it out with others," Saracen finished. "Think about it; we will probably be alive for a long time and we can't know for sure that we are right for each other."  
Dexter nodded, looking a bit forlorn, but understanding what the darker haired boy was getting at. He leaned in to hug Saracen.  
"I don't mean to say I don't like you, Dex. I just don't want to get this wrong."  
"Neither do I."


	25. In Which The Dead Men Are Formed

Although she ended up being greatly covered in flour, Valkyrie had managed to succeed in helping Aura bake the steak and ale pie. By the time Val had washed herself and little Joy up (somehow the small two year old had got covered in the chalky white powder, though she barely came into the kitchen), the pie was ready and the boys had finally come home.  
"Care to say where you have been all day with the others?" Valkyrie whispered to Skulduggery as she bade them all in.  
"We will tell you at the table, okay?"  
Valkyrie frowned at the idea of having to wait for an answer, but she kept in her annoyance and helped sit Joy down at the table.  
"Is Skuldug'ry and Daddy back?" she asked, looking up at Val.  
"They took their time about it, but yes."  
"I miss them when they go."  
"I do too." Valkyrie ruffled the girl's hair, it being still fairly short baby curls. She tended to forget that Joy was still so young and it was little moments like this that she realised how small she really was.  
It was only when they all sat around the table did Roshan explain where they had been all day.  
"The boys are going to go on a mission for the Sanctuary."  
"Seriously?" Aura looked slightly stunned.  
"Can I come?" Joy said, waving her spoon, throwing bits of pie on the floor.  
"No, Joy," Roshan said, with a small smile on his face. "I don't think that is a good idea. Maybe when you're older."  
The little girl pouted, throwing a chunk of meat across the table. Aura rolled her eyes, calmly placing the meat chunk back into Joy's plate, cutting up the pie for the toddler. "You were saying, Roshan?"  
"The boys are going on a mission for the Sanctuary to look for Mevolent's base."  
"Who decided it was a smart idea to send a bunch of children on a mission to find the world's most dangerous man?" Aura asked, her green eyes flashing in anger.  
Roshan looked guilty. "I did."  
"Why, darling?"  
Everyone was beginning to shift uncomfortably, unsure how this fight was going to unfold. Skulduggery leant over towards Valkyrie.  
"I think you might want to eat quickly and leave before my mum decides to explode," he whispered. "It won't be pretty."  
"I don't think so," Val hissed back, still annoyed that the boys had left so suddenly that morning without a word of warning. "I want to know what's going on."  
"The Sanctuaries don't have enough people to send on this particular mission," Roshan was explaining. "We've needed a group to do scouting missions for us for a while and they are the perfect group to do just that. They are all capable teenagers-"  
"They've not even finished school, Roshan!"  
"No, but they have the rest of the holiday."  
"That's for family!"  
"We are in a war, Aura! Do you get that?"  
Aura slumped back. "I do."  
"So you understand that if we don't do anything, the world is going to get taken over by Mevolent."  
"I know." She looked close to tears.  
Roshan walked over to his wife, pulling her in for a hug. "I'm sorry. I know it's tough, but they need to. We don't have another option. We wouldn't have suggested it otherwise."  
Aura nodded, rubbing her face into his shoulder. "Okay."  
Roshan looked over Aura's shoulder towards Valkyrie, who was still absorbing in the information. "The boys want you to go with them."  
"What?"  
"We need seven people, or at least, that's what the Grand Mage said," Skulduggery put in. Val whipped her head round sharply to face him. "I suggested that you would fit in the team very well."  
Valkyrie's brow furrowed. "Well, of course I'll go, but who will stay with Liv?"  
"I'm okay to stay here and keep Aura and Joy company," Liv put in. "I think finding Mevolent's whereabouts is more important than me being a bit lonely."  
"Are you sure?"  
"Yeah! I'll invite the girls round at some point if I get really lonely."  
"Yay! More people!" Joy exclaimed.  
"Well, that's it then," Aura said, as cheerfully as possible. "When will they be leaving?"  
"As soon as possible," Roshan told her. "Preferably tomorrow."


	26. In Which A Kiss And A Plot Occur

Valkyrie crawled into the bed, wrapping the covers around her, knowing that this could well be the last time she would get a good night's rest in a comfortable bed for quite sometime. It wasn't long before Skulduggery crawled in after, wrapping his arm around her comfortingly.  
"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "We should have brought you four along."  
"S'okay, don't worry," she murmured back, twisting round under the covers to face him.  
He smiled softly. "You don't mind being part of the team, do you?"  
"Hey, I'm the one who can beat you in a fight. I would be insulted if you hadn't asked."  
"That's true."  
They lay in comfortable silence again, before Skulduggery shifted suddenly, the expression on his face changing rapidly.  
"What?"  
"We've never kissed, have we."  
Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. "No."  
He sat up sharply. "But, I've asked you to be my girlfriend and I've taken you on a date. How have I not kissed you yet?"  
"How am I supposed to know?" Valkyrie muttered, propping herself up onto her elbows.  
"I've liked you for ages as well and-"  
"Skulduggery…"  
"-I just don't see how on earth I've never got round to-"  
"Skulduggery!"  
"-kissing you and-"  
He was cut off once again by Valkyrie suddenly moving towards him and they were kissing. He was surprised at first, not managing to move him lips to reciprocate, but just as she was beginning to pull away, he slowly parted his lips, putting his arms around her to shift her closer.  
They stayed that way for a few minutes, quietly kissing, Valkyrie stroking the ends of his hair, Skulduggery rubbing her arms gently. They broke away eventually when they realised they were lying down on the bed.  
For Valkyrie, it was unlike any kiss she had ever experienced. Fletcher had never been tender, but chaste whilst the vampire had been overly passionate. Skulduggery, on the other hand, was simply gentle and loving, not demanding or faraway.  
For Skulduggery, it was certainly a new experience, having never managed to kiss someone in such a way before. It hadn't been rushed or detached like he behaved with other girls. No, this was love, no denying it to himself.  
Pulling her closer, they lay together, listening to the howling of the wind outside, curled in the warmth of their bodies and the blankets, quietly falling asleep.

China Sorrows cast a glance down the dark empty corridor, sliding into the shadows as she tiptoed towards the front door, avoiding the creaky floorboards. Knowing her brother was light sleeper meant she took extra care as she opened the door to slip outside, making sure it didn't open wide enough to creak.  
The cold air whistled past her and she clutched her dark cloak closer to her body, trying to stay warm. It was only moments later that the teleporter popped into view in the street and she rushed forwards. They silently nodded in acknowledgement before he placed a hand on her shoulder and suddenly she was in a warm, but foreboding corridor, huge wooden double doors framing the end of the corridor.  
She barely noticed the teleporter disappearing again as she steadily walked towards the doors, though her hands were trembling.  
Why was she doing this?  
She wasn't sure. She knew it would make her parents proud, to go through with this ordeal that would happen when she opened the heavy doors.  
But she also knew her brother would go berserk if he ever found out. He had taken her from their parents to live in a small, insignificant house in the middle of a town in the middle of nowhere. A small part of her felt like her brother was right to do so, but a much larger part was thinking of the massive mansion her parents owned in the middle of the capital city where all the people were. She craved socialising and gossiping, catching up on the latest news. She could only get that if she joined.  
Plus, it would make revenge on Valkyrie Cain all the easier, with all these people on her side.  
Making her decision, she took a deep breath and pushed the door open. Joining the Faceless Ones was the way to go.


	27. In Which It Rains

Liv rolled over in the small bed, not realising how close she was to the edge of it when she was suddenly on the floor. She sat up, rubbing her head, looking up when she heard the sound of soft laughter.  
"Oh, yeah, very funny," she muttered at Anton, who's head was poked over the edge of the bed, a huge grin on his face.  
"Here," he said, still chuckling but giving her a hand up, pulling her over back onto the bed, although she began to look like a beached whale as flailed to get herself balanced on the soft mattress. By the time she finally got herself sitting normally, he was laughing outright at her.  
She huffed, pouting and folding her arms angrily. "Maybe if you didn't hog the bed, I wouldn't be falling out of it."  
"Maybe if you didn't roll around so much, you wouldn't be looking like a beached whale."  
"Ha! Rude! I am a very elegant young woman, I'll have you know!"  
Anton raised his eyebrows.  
"I like to believe I am in any case," she corrected, looking down, blushing deeply.  
They sat in a relaxed silence, Anton quietly rubbing circles on her arm whilst Liv unconsciously played with his long hair.  
"I've been meaning to ask you something for a while now," Anton said suddenly.  
Liv looked at him, looking confused. "Go on."  
"Well, I've been wondering whether you knew we would get together or not, you being a time traveller and all and knowing everything about Skulduggery and Valkyrie."  
"I never knew. I only got told about Skulduggery and Valkyrie, mostly because they are the important ones for the future." Liv gave him a small smile. "I was just doing as I was told by the Sensitive who works with the time travellers."  
"Who?" Anton looked confused.  
"Oh, the Seer is a sensitive in the future who uses us, time travellers I mean, to ensure that everything goes according to plan in history."  
Anton frowned. "That sounds confusing."  
"It is."  
There was a brief pause.  
"You don't mind being left behind whilst we go on this mission, do you?"  
"I don't. It's better if I take a backseat for a while rather than getting too involved. So far, everything is going to plan. The difficulties come later."  
"I'm presuming you aren't going to tell me what the difficulties are going to be."  
"No. Not this time." Liv felt a slight pang in her heart, knowing that Anton would immediately tell the others if she told him about Skulduggery's impending doom. "If anything goes awry in the near future, everything will go wrong."

It was early when they left, the sun not having risen yet. Joy had woken up with everyone else to say goodbye and it surprised Valkyrie that the little girl didn't make a fuss. She had simply hugged Val, her little pudgy arms wrapping just slightly too tightly around her neck like little children do, and gave her a stern look.  
"I'm expecting you home as soon as possible," Joy said, very seriously, a frown creasing her usually smiley face. "If not, I will be very annoyed. Promise you'll come back before Midwinter's Day."  
"How many days away is that."  
Joy gave her an incredulous look. "It is five days away! How do you not know that?"  
Valkyrie laughed. "I never know what day we are on. It feels like all the days are blurring into each other."  
Skulduggery ruffled his little sister's hair. "She's been counting down the days to Midwinter since the beginning of autumn."  
"I'm sure we'll be back before then. Don't worry."  
Joy gave her one last look. "Okay!" she said, cheerfully, sliding off Val's lap and running to hug everyone else, telling all of them to be back before Midwinter.

The carriage took them all the way to the border where the Sanctuary was still in control. They were dropped off between two small lakes, a boggy area that seemed to cut off the land between one land chunk and the other.  
The Sanctuary official who had picked them up and briefed them had explained that Mevolent's army was thought to be building up on the other side of the bog, taking advantage of the divide that prevented people from scouting.  
"Your task," the man had explained, "is to spy on Mevolent's rebel army, getting as much information as possible concerning their numbers and their strength. Get out before they realise you are there, and we'll meet you here in precisely two days. We estimate that their base is a half day away."  
They were travelling light, only carrying a basic survival kit just in case as they were not expecting to stay out in the field for very long. Valkyrie glared at the torrent of rain that pelted down on them, puzzled as to how in one small island it could be snowing over one part and chucking it down with rain in another.  
"I hate rain," she grumbled, pulling the cloak tightly around herself. Her hair was tucked in a braid under the hood, and she wore comfortable loose trousers and a tunic, but she could feel the rain soaking into the cloak rapidly.  
"Hey, if you hate the rain, you are going to absolutely detest what is coming next," Dexter warned her. "We need to go through that." He pointed at the bog ahead.  
Valkyrie felt her spirits hit rock bottom.  
"You have got to be joking!"


	28. In Which The Dead Men Find A Patrol

It took them about an hour to get through the entire bog. The cloak had done barely anything to keep out the water, and she was absolutely freezing as she felt the now uncomfortably damp clothes rub against her skin. She was surprised to notice that all the others appeared to be dry, and giving her funny looks.  
"How are you not soaking wet?" she grumbled at them.  
"Have you, by any chance, forgotten that you have control over the elements?" Dexter mentioned.  
"Of course I haven't," she snapped, and then thought about what the blonde boy had just said. She felt herself flushing as she realised her stupidity. "I am an idiot," she mumbled, putting her face in her hands, drying her clothes off quickly and made a bubble of air around her to keep the rain out. Attempting to drown out the laughter from the boys, she stomped off towards the patch of trees she could she in the distance, turning round briefly to check that she was going in the right direction. She didn't need to be embarrassed more than once during the course of the mission. She was pleased to note that she had chosen the right direction to walk in.  
She kept on walking in a huff, determined to remain lofty for the entire trip, but Skulduggery ruined all hopes for that plan when he jogged to catch up with her, spinning her around, kissing her full on the lips. The move surprised her so much that she couldn't think straight enough to force herself to be angry at him.  
"Be happy," he said after her broke away from her. "We don't want any problem on the mission, just because Dex embarrassed you." They both ignored the happy cheers from Erskine, Dexter and Saracen.  
"Hey! Can I do that with Saracen?" Dexter called.  
"Nothing's stopping you," muttered Anton, although seemed to regret saying that when the two boys turned to snog each other happily.  
"You shouldn't really encourage either of them," Ghastly said, rolling his eyes. "Very little would stop them from having wild sex here in a bog, and that is something nobody ever wants to see."  
Valkyrie gave a low laugh, turning back to Skulduggery. "Okay," she told him, squeezing his hand comfortingly.  
The journey to the base itself was uneventful, only encountering one patrol of hollow men, one mage, a necromancer, leading them in the woodland. The seven of them ducked behind various trees, careful to stay as quiet as possible, tucking their cloaks closer to their bodies so that they wouldn't give themselves away. The patrol continued onwards, not noticing that they were being subtly followed.  
Valkyrie noticed that, unlike the last time she had seen the Dead Men in action, the six boys were not working quite in sync with each other. There were little things she noticed, like the fact that they were not covering each other whilst they darted from tree to tree, checking that the patrol wasn't looking before they ran out of the cover of the trees. It wasn't that they were incompetent; they could clearly take care of themselves, but they weren't behaving and responding to another's action like a team would.  
Then again, Valkyrie thought to herself. They haven't really been practicing teamwork before. They had only just been assembled. But this wasn't going to stop her pointing out their flaws later, when they returned from the mission. She stored the information at the back of her head, and continued to dart forward, following the patrol back to the base.  
Mevolent's base was unremarkable; an abandoned castle in the middle of the woodland, hidden by the towering trees and presumably, looking at the building's small size, it was likely to have an extensive basement.  
"That's it?" Erskine whispered as they all watched the patrol approach the castle.  
"Apparently," Ghastly mumbled, looking a bit unimpressed.  
"Doesn't really look like much," Saracen stated.  
"I was thinking just that," Dexter put in.  
They all stared at it a bit longer.  
"Aren't we supposed to be doing something?" Saracen finally asked. "I swear we were in a rush a moment ago?"  
Valkyrie frowned at the dark haired boy. "The mission, turnip head," she said, punching his arm. "Know a way to get into the castle, clever clogs?"  
Saracen gave her a cheerful grin. "Of course!" He scanned the building quickly, and then pointed at the moat. "There is an underground passageway that goes under the moat, leading directly to an empty storeroom. The entrance is…" He looked thoughtful for a moment, looking around and walking over to a group of bushes. He pushed aside the brambles, cutting some back and crouched on the floor, knocking the ground gently with his knuckle. They could all clearly hear the sound of echoing wood. "Here!"  
They all looked at him gobsmacked, except for Valkyrie. "How did you know all that?" Dexter gaped at him."  
Before Saracen could smugly reply, Valkyrie swiftly remarked, "He knows things."  
"Hey! You stole that from me! I've been waiting to say that for months!"  
"Ever since you started practicing your mysterious discipline?" Dexter asked him.  
Saracen nodded miserably.

The tunnel was damp and it felt like there was a small stream running down the centre of it. Dexter, not being an elemental, grumped as he felt the water begin to soak into his boots, unable to do anything about it. He was just going to have to cope until they arrived.  
Skulduggery, Valkyrie and Ghastly lit the way for them, their flames illuminating the muddy walls where bugs scurried away from them. Dex cringed. He hated insects. Saracen and the others would tease him during the summer months by catching flies and letting them loose in his room, or putting worms in his washbowl so that whilst he was washing his face half asleep in the mornings, he would get caught unawares by the wriggling creature that would somehow find its way into his palm. He shuddered, pulling up his hood, hoping that Saracen hadn't already decided to put a beetle in his cloak.  
Suddenly, Ghastly, who was leading the group through the tunnel, stopped.  
"I think we've arrived."


	29. In Which A Castle Is Stormed By Accident

The trapdoor was unlocked, but the problem was the boxes that were piled on top of the door.  
"Saracen, I thought you said the storage room was empty?" Ghastly groaned as they all tried to budge the door.  
Saracen scratched the back of his neck, looking awkward. "Yeah, I couldn't tell whether or not there was anything in the room.  
Ghastly gave a groan. "Is anyone good at sneaking in and could shift the boxes, so we can do more snooping?"  
Valkyrie rolled her eyes. "Can neither of you two manipulate earth at all?" giving him, Erskine and Skulduggery a look. The three of them looked a bit embarrassed before shaking their heads. "Unbelievable."  
They watched as she read the air, carefully noting where the crates in the room were. "There are no crates in that direction, only a short distance away from the door."  
They sat, Skulduggery, Erskine and Ghastly illuminating the passage, trying to dry everyone off simultaneously whilst Valkyrie began to dig a small opening to the room above. It was a full hour before they were in the storeroom, where they were faced by yet another locked door. Fortunately, Dexter had also learnt some of the more minor adept tricks, including unlocking locked doors. The corridor, a small side one, was completely deserted. They ducked back into the security of the storeroom again, and Skulduggery turned to them.  
"We should probably split up into three groups. Ghastly, Anton, you go down that way." The green eyed boy pointed to the left. "Search about, don't get caught, but if you hear anything useful, hang around for a bit." He turned to Dexter and Saracen, opening his mouth before hesitating. "Actually, putting you two together alone is probably not a good idea. Val, can you go with Saracen, Erskine and Dexter can go with me and therefore we won't have anyone getting distracted."  
Ghastly struggled to hold back a laugh at Dexter and Valkyrie's distressed expressions.  
"Fine," Val grumbled giving Skulduggery a small glare, who pouted at her.  
"Why?" Dexter grouched. "We aren't going to really make out the entire time."  
Anton raised his eyebrows.  
"Valkyrie, Saracen, if you go down the same route as Ghastly and Anton, but divide out at the first fork in the corridors, then you can explore there. Meet back here as soon as you can, preferably in about two or three hours, in the tunnel if necessary."  
They all nodded and got to work.

Working with Saracen wasn't so bad. He didn't get distracted, but wasn't silent and boring for the entire time either. They ended up bumping into a small Hollow Men patrol again, which they easily evaded, but they didn't meet anyone of any importance at all. They made small talk, Valkyrie asking him about Dexter and how they were doing. He didn't mention much, asking the girl more questions about Skulduggery, suggestively raising his eyebrows when he asked if they had gone anywhere yet.  
"If you know what I mean," he said, looking smug.  
Valkyrie rolled her eyes, blushing slightly, peering round another corner, finding another empty corridor. "Not in that way!" she whispered.  
He gave a quiet chuckle, before they continue aimlessly wandering down more empty corridors.  
Somehow, they ended up in a rather dank part of the castle, and suddenly there were more patrols and they could hear the wails of people in the distance.  
Saracen gave her a grimace. "Prisoners," he mumbled.  
"Can we not help anybody?" Valkyrie asked as they continued to carefully walk down the edges of the corridors, what with the patrols becoming more frequent. They only just managed to duck into a small alcove to hide as another patrol passed in the corridor in front of them.  
"We are already incredibly likely to get caught if you are not careful!" he muttered into her ear. "We can't just rescue people otherwise Mevolent is bound to know someone has come scouting, making it harder to do other missions, with the rebels on hyper alert."  
But it was the prisoners that came to them.  
They had been moving past the entrance to the dungeons when it was flung open, a Hollow Man flying through it, along with a man in scruffy rags. The fumes got to Valkyrie's eyes immediately, making them water, choking at her throat. She only just managed to duck a swipe from the second Hollow man, stumbling to her feet and pushing him towards the window, a slit in the brickwork. She could vaguely hear the sounds of another person careering through the door, and the sound of a punch. Looking round to check that Saracen had the situation vaguely under control, she concentrated on making a slit in the head of the shell, letting the fumes pour out of the window. When it had deflated enough, she pushed the balloon like substance out of the gap before launching herself into the fray.  
There had been a few Hollow Men inside the prison and two guards, one who was already out cold on the floor, but the other was putting up a difficult fight. Saracen had knocked the rebels head twice against the floor and the wall, but it had only resulted in an angrier man, blood spraying in several directions as the hauled each other around. It was only when Saracen had held the man down and Valkyrie had punch his face another two times did he finally lose consciousness.  
They turned to the man in rags on the floor, who was more of a teenager, roughly their age. He looked a bit worse for the wear. but otherwise seemed fairly healthy. Valkyrie opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by the sound of more rebels down the corridor.  
They didn't even speak, moving together to pick up the boy and then sprinted down the way they came from, knowing the boy was following them.  
Saracen led the way, appearing to know the way, and soon they were back in the tunnel.  
"What about the others? Will they get caught?"  
"I don't know, but let's hope they do."  
They forgot all about the boy who was shivering with them in the dark, Valkyrie not daring to light a small fire in case anyone came into the dark storeroom and saw the flame through the hole. It was only when the other boys were safely back in the tunnel, cursing at the fact that their mission was cut short, and they had got out of the claustrophobic space, well away from the tunnel, did Dexter finally ask.  
"Who are you?"

Skulduggery turned around sharply and saw a thin faced boy in rags. He looked very afraid, but there was a fighting gleam in his eye.  
"Oh, my goodness, I completely forgot!" cried Valkyrie. She pulled off her cloak, wrapping it around his cold shoulders.  
"Thank you," he croaked as they passed him a pouch of water.  
"Who are you?" Dexter repeated, a little more kindly than originally.  
"My name is Hopeless."


	30. Which Is Far Too Full Of Necromancers

Valkyrie's eyes widened, but she curbed her shock, quickly hiding the recognition from her face.  
"Hopeless?" Ghastly sounded a little doubtful. "Where are you from and what were you doing in an enemy dungeon?"  
Hopeless gave a small smile. "I, Ghastly Bespoke, used to go to your school."  
The scarred boy looked surprised before a look of understanding settled on his face. "You were the Head Boy of Ende Academy two years ago, am I right?"  
The skinny boy nodded. "I joined the Sanctuary the moment I left school so that I could help. My power meant that they would use me as a spy."  
"And your discipline is?" Dexter put in.  
"I am a shape shifter. I can change my appearance to look like somebody else, although I also picked up some symbol magic alongside it. I'll demonstrate," he said and suddenly his features merged, face becoming rounder and skin darkening. The hair on his head seemed to retract and no longer did he look like a pitiful boy, but a stocky man, a little on the short side, but definitely looked much older.  
"That is… Certainly useful," Skulduggery managed to say, sounding startled at the sudden transformation.  
"Very useful. I've been able to get in and out of the prison several times, disguising as a guard sometimes and it means they have never attempted to torture me because they never thought I would have any information that could help them."  
They had begun to walk back to the rendezvous, all of them intrigued by Hopeless' story.  
"How long have you been gathering information from Mevolent's forces for?" Skulduggery asked.  
"About six months, maybe more."  
The Dead Men all looked at each other, smiles growing across their faces.  
"Val, Saracen. You hit a jackpot of information!" Erskine grinned.  
"We got information too," Ghastly put in, looking grim. "And you are not going to like it.

Ghastly was right. They weren't.  
"China joined Mevolent's forces?" Dexter shrieked. "You have got to be joking."  
"I mean, she wasn't particularly nice, but I can't really picture her as one of Mevolent's followers." Saracen added.  
Skulduggery was fuming, as was Erskine. The whole Winter Ball fiasco was still a sore topic for the two boys, particularly the golden eyed one and this new development had not helped.  
"I always hated China," Anton muttered. "I was so close to losing it when I saw her."  
Everyone gave Anton and Ghastly a worried look. "Seriously?" Skulduggery asked.  
Ghastly nodded. "I am certain our cover and our identities would have been discovered had I not managed to drag him away and calm him down."  
"Shit."  
"My thoughts exactly."  
It was at that precise moment that they were jumped. A shadow whistled through the air which narrowly missed Skulduggery and sliced open Saracen's arm. Everyone jumped, Valkyrie immediately steadying herself, fireballs formed in her hands.  
"In the bushes!" Ghastly informed them, pointing to a shadowy thicket. Valkyrie and Skulduggery hurled fire at the area, but as the flames caught on the damp foliage, cloaked figures leapt out of the smoke, launching themselves onto Dexter and Erskine who were the closest. Valkyrie noticed Hopeless growing incredibly stocky and tall and charged into the fight, grabbing at the nearest rebel, who was whipping another shadow around. Valkyrie spotted a bangle around the cloaked figure's wrist, noting that it was made of the same material as her ring that she had left at home. She had very little time to contemplate on this as she spotted movement in the corner of her eye, quickly sidestepping a third necromancer's sneak attack, grabbing his wrists as he darted past her and used his momentum to throw him roughly to the floor. She swiftly moved to kneel on the person's back, driving a swift punch to his jaw and only just getting nicked by the shadow he shot passed her ear, his last attempt at freedom before she knocked him unconscious.  
An idea popped into her head and she quickly searched the man, finding the object he used to store his necromancy in the form of a necklace. Hurriedly, she yanked it off and put it around her own neck, feeling the power surge through her and all of a sudden she was off again, diverting the necromancers' attacks away from the boys, using the shadows against them. It was clear they had not been expecting this, their eyes widening in shock as they realised their powers were useless against this young girl with a smug expression on her face.  
With their powers useless, none of the attackers being particularly good at physical combat, it was not long before they were overpowered and the eight of them were running as quickly as possible.

"Well now they definitely know who we are if they weren't knocked hard enough for them to forget." Valkyrie stated, as they finally slowed down.  
"Since when were you a necromancer?" Skulduggery asked her, a little indignant. It annoyed him to realise that there was still a lot about the girl that he didn't know about.  
Valkyrie flushed. "I have the skills to become one, but I didn't really want to join the necromancy church, so I gave it up."  
Skulduggery's eyes narrowed. He could tell it wasn’t the whole truth, but he let it lie, knowing that it was likely the whole truth would leave her to expose the fact that she was from the future.  
"I swear necromancers need an object to put their magic into," Hopeless said. He had morphed into another person, a rather handsome one with sharp blue eyes and light brown hair.  
"I stole one from the necromancer I knocked out first," she explained, pulling out a necklace made of a shiny black material that looked oddly eerie.  
"Well," Ghastly stated, breaking the silence. "You are one surprising girl. No wonder Skulduggery likes you."  
They laughed, Valkyrie a little nervously, but looked a little more relaxed.  
They had arrived at the bog again and their grins fell a little as they realised that they had to cross it again, but now that they knew the safest, and driest, route across, it took them less time and soon they were on the other side.  
"I swear the guy who took us here said he would be meeting us in two days."  
They all groaned.


	31. Which Concerns The Elders And Home

Their ride came early, fortunately for them, so they had only had to camp out in the swamp for a night. They were taken straight back to the Sanctuary, who requested an audience with them immediately.  
Grand Mage Noxious gave them a glare. "Who compromised the security of this mission?" he half yelled at them. "I am positive that alerting the rebels that we know of their whereabouts is not what I ordered you to do."  
The other two elders, Mage Ainia and Mage Chaldean gave them rather disappointed looks.  
Skulduggery pulled them out of trouble. "We obviously didn't intend for the rebels to become aware that they were being spied upon. Fortunately for us, however, they did not see our faces, and the necromancers that attacked us will not be able to convey an accurate report of our identities either. Miss Cain here ensured that."  
"How?" Noxious demanded.  
"She used their necromancy powers against them," Saracen told them.  
The Elders looked surprised. "I wasn't aware Miss Cain was a necromancer."  
"I don't practice it, Grand Mage," Valkyrie explained. "I want to become an elemental after the Surge, but I have been taught some necromancy."  
"Let's see your necromancy artefact."  
Valkyrie pulled out the necklace from around her neck. "It isn't mine. It belonged to one of the necromancers that attacked us."  
Mage Ainia frowned. "I thought that necromancers couldn't use another necromancer's artefact unless they had been given permission," she voiced, looking a little suspicious.  
That was true. Valkyrie frowned, wondering how on earth she had been able to use the necklace without being destroyed by the other's power. "That's correct. I don't really know how I didn't get pulverised by the necromancer's power."  
Anton stepped in. "I have read that incredibly strong necromancers are capable of taking control over another's artefact. It is entirely probable that Miss Cain is one of those people."  
"Then it puzzles me," the female Elder continued, still staring curiously at Valkyrie, "as to why Miss Cain did not continue to develop her necromancy powers, when it is clear she has a natural talent for necromancy."  
"I don't care to become a Cleric and become bound to the Necromancers' Church. I wanted to abandon necromancy altogether, but in this situation, it saved my friends."  
The meeting turned to Hopeless after this. "This man was rescued from the rebel base," Skulduggery continued, indicating towards the shape shifter that had taken the form of a rather handsome young man with a goatee. "Hopeless was a Sanctuary official who was captured about a year ago. He has in depth knowledge of Mevolent's plans and wants to continue working with the Sanctuary. He has barely been noticed by the rebels at the base due to his rather helpful discipline and so we are hoping his absence will go mostly unnoticed."  
Hopeless stepped forward towards the Elders, who at this point were looking fairly impressed by the outcome of their mission. Despite the few mistakes, they had managed to gain a lot of knowledge. "I am willing to give the Sanctuary detailed accounts of the rebels plans and any other information I can provide."  
"Thank you, Hopeless," Noxious dismissed him. "Any other information?"  
Ghastly stepped forward. "We are aware of a girl who now works for Mevolent who goes, or at least used to go to our school. Her name is China Sorrows."  
The three Elders, oddly enough, did not look surprised. "We already know about this. Her brother, Mr Bliss informed us of this a few days ago."  
"Will she be continuing to go to our school after the winter holiday?"  
"We don't think so. If she does, however, we will have our agents who are at the school take her in for questioning. You need not worry about her for the time being. Is this all?"  
They all nodded.  
Noxious sat himself up. "Very well. You are allowed to go home to your families and you may continue to go to Ende Academy. However, we need a detailed report of the mission from each and everyone one of you by the end of the week. We will probably need your help again soon, but for the time being, you can continue with your daily lives." He turned to Hopeless. "You are allowed to take back your job as a field agent, but I think you need a month off before your return. You are all dismissed."

"Well, that was successful," Erskine said, quite cheerfully as they made their way back to the waiting carriage.  
Dexter nodded before looking back at Hopeless. "Where will you be staying," he asked the shape shifter.  
He shrugged his shoulders. "No clue."  
Skulduggery tilted his head. "Ghastly, do you have space to put Hopeless up with you? My house is full at the moment.  
"If Erskine stays at his, we have space in my room."  
Erskine seemed a little put out that he was going to be left out again, but didn't complain. After all, he only lived in the neighbouring hamlet, a half hour walk away, and he had spent enough time away from his family this holiday.  
He was dropped off first at his little farm and it wasn't long before the carriage came to a halt in front of Ghastly's house.  
"Hopeless, this is us," Dexter told him. The four boys stepped off lightly waving goodbye to Valkyrie, Anton and Skulduggery.  
"We'll probably see you tomorrow," Saracen called to them as they disappeared into the tailor shop.  
Skulduggery nodded.


	32. In Which Presents Are Discussed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the story is now fully updated so that it is the same on Wattpad and Fanfiction.net!! YAYAYYAY  
> I'm also sorry that it is talking about Christmas and we are in the middle of summer (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere anyway, how about middle of the year?)  
> It took forever, I'm sorry... :) BUT IT'S DONE NOW!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAY- Leo

The days after the first mission for the Dead Men were quiet, up until Mid-Winter.  
Valkyrie, who was happy enough just to spend time with the group of boys and Liv, completely forgot about what for her would be Christmas Day. It was only the day before Mid-Winter's Day that Aura mentioned it at the breakfast table, making both Joy and Valkyrie squeal in delight.  
"Overexcited, much?" Skulduggery raised his eyebrows at his girlfriend as she began to babble about presents and decorations.  
"Not at all! Mid-Winter is the best time of the year! You get to give stuff to other people, and other people give you stuff, and then you eat a stupid amount of food, and you can ignore the fact that it's cold, and-"  
"Calm down!" Skulduggery gave her a nudge, but kept on smiling at her. Aura and Roshan were hiding their own grins in their plate of porridge whilst Joy was still happily chanting "Presents!"  
"But it's Mid-Winter!" Valkyrie was beginning to look a little crestfallen at Skulduggery's dismissive attitude.  
Anton spoke up. "He has never liked Mid-Winter's Day much," he explained.  
"That's because Skully is stupid!" Joy said, sticking her tongue out at her older brother.  
"Joy, be nice to your brother!" Aura reprimanded, but the grin didn't waver on her face.  
Valkyrie managed to tone down her emotions, asking Aura and Roshan what they usually did on Mid-Winter's Day.  
"We generally either all go over to the tailor shop, or they all come over here," Roshan explained. "We have a big meal, give each other gifts and spend time together. Who's turn is it this year?" he asked his wife.  
"Theirs, but we need to bring pudding over."  
"Fair enough."  
"I haven't bought any presents," Liv said, a little guiltily.  
"Me neither!" Valkyrie looked horrified at herself.  
"We need to go to the market anyway today," Aura calmed them. "You can go in with me and get some little gifts from the town. I'm assuming Skulduggery hasn't remembered to get presents either." She gave her son a glare.  
Skulduggery just grinned.  
"I'll go in too," Anton offered. "I have gifts, but I figure you would need some help, Aura."  
"Thank you. Roshan?"  
"I'll stay here with Joy," he said, finishing off the last bit of porridge from his bowl. "I have some paperwork for the Sanctuary to complete so I can have the day off tomorrow."  
"We'd better go and get ready, then!" Aura told them, a cheerful smile on her face. Today was going to be interesting.

Liv and Val walked arm in arm through the plentiful market stalls, weaving in and out of the thick crowd. Everyone seemed to be in town today, making last minute preparations for the next day.  
So far, neither of them had found anything interesting whatsoever.  
"Seriously? Another jewellery stall?" Valkyrie looked down at the third stall that housed precious stones and metals in mild annoyance.  
"At least these ones are better quality than the other two," Liv said, fairly. "Look, that would be a nice brooch for Aura. Or me." She batted her eyelashes slyly.  
Valkyrie raised her eyebrows at the purple girl's antics. In order for her to get away with her odd appearance in public, Aura had covered her face in make up and a large hat was placed over the main bulk of the girl's hair to hide it away, also drawing attention away from her face. The long sleeved cloak and gloves were made of very fine material, and covered the rest of her purple skin. It was unnoticeable to a certain extent and good enough for a small excursion where most people would be focused on their own plans.  
"You buy it for Aura then," she told Liv. "It's not the sort of thing I buy for people."  
"Fair enough." Liv turned to the stall owner, asking the man what it was worth.  
It was more expensive than most jewellery, a waste of money in Valkyrie's point of view, but at the same time she knew Liv had good judgement and it was probably of good quality.  
"I've nearly bought something for everybody, and here you are with a single, measly book of poetry for Anton."  
"The boys are difficult to buy for," Valkyrie countered.  
"You know them much better than I do!"  
"Yes, that makes it even harder. I don't want to get it wrong. I remembered that Anton likes poetry in the future, so I figured he would like it now considering how old some of the poetry he has recited previously is." She paused. "Will be." She turned to Liv, a confused expression on her face. "Has been?"  
"Don't even bother trying to work that out. I know what you mean. I'm a time traveller and the tenses I should use always confuse me."  
"Glad I'm not the only one."  
"Trust me. Every time traveller had these problems."  
It was only towards the end of the shopping trip that Valkyrie finally found a stall where the perfect gifts for each of her friends were laid before her. She smiled as she bought them, carefully ensuring that Liv was preoccupied with another stall as she got them all packed into her basket.  
Finally!


	33. In Which Valkyrie Wakes Up Early

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you guys know how difficult it is to write an incredibly out of season chapter?  
> Because I have writers block... -_-

Skulduggery and Valkyrie were awoken the next morning by an overexcited Joy, who leapt on them, laughing.  
“Come on, come on!” the small girl giggled as the pair of them sat up sleepily.  
“She does this every year,” Skulduggery mumbled to Val, who simply flopped back onto her pillow, her head not quite aware that she was awake yet.  
“Come on, Vallie! Everyone needs to get up now!”  
“What time is it?” the dark haired elemental grumbled as Skul helped her sit up again.  
“Seven o’clock on the dot,” Joy shrieked as she ran out of the room, presumably to wake everyone else up.  
Skulduggery slipped out of the bed, moving to pull on a clean shirt make himself presentable. “Mother and father gave her a rule; she is only allowed to wake everyone up at seven in the morning, no earlier. She’s probably been up since six watching the clock downstairs.”  
She hauled herself out of bed, the white nightgown no protection against the cold of the room. Skulduggery grabbed a robe from the side, wrapping it around her before he moved to the small fireplace in the corner of his room to quickly light a fire.  
“You probably want to put some warmer clothes on,” he told Valkyrie as she huddled herself in the warm robe, her toes peeking out. “It’s always cold in the mornings, and I don’t think any of the fires have been lit yet.” He was already fully dressed in a comfortable, but smart outfit. “We’ll probably head up to Ghastly’s place after breakfast, so wear your nice dress.”  
She only managed a sleepy nod, waiting for Skulduggery to leave so she could change in private. It took her way too long to pull off the nightgown and get into one of the few warm dresses hanging in the wardrobe that Aura let her borrow. By the time she made her way downstairs, everyone was already sitting and eating breakfast, Joy bouncing around the table, telling them all to hurry up.  
“Good morning, sleepy head,” Livena said, smiling brightly at Valkyrie, who shifted into her seat, wrapping the shawl around her.  
“Vallie!” Joy jumped onto her lap, smiling broadly. “You are taking way too long. Mama said Ana and Savage are expecting us at nine o’clock, and it is now nearly eight o’clock.” She looked very pleased with herself at being able to tell the time.  
Valkyrie rubbed the sleep from her eyes, gratefully accepting the porridge Aura offered, shifting Joy in her lap so that she could reach around the small girl to eat. “Give me a moment to feel like I’m not about to fall back to sleep, okay?”  
“How can you want to go back to sleep?” Joy asked, puzzled. “It’s Mid-Winter and it’s going to be so much fun!”

It was only when they all had finally got out of the house into the brisk, cold Winter’s day that Valkyrie finally managed to feel much more awake, cheerfully skipping down the road of the hamlet with Liv and Joy.  
“Joy, tell us who we’re going to see today, will you?” Livena asked the child as she and Val made the girl swing and fly in the air.  
“We gonna see Ana and Savage, Ghastly’s mummy and daddy, Ghastly, Dex and Saracen and maybe Erskine and his mummy and daddy later.”  
“There is going to be someone else too,” Valkyrie put in. “There is a new boy and his name is Hopeless.”  
“Ooh! What discipline does he have?”  
“He is a shapeshifter,” Val explained, lifting Joy up as she was clearly already a bit tired.  
“Do you think he’ll like me?”  
“I’m sure he’ll think you are adorable.”

Ghastly’s mother was just like Valkyrie had imagined; she was rather burly, with strong arms and toughened skin on her hands, but Ghastly had clearly inherited her kind eyes and smile. She immediately moved to hug everyone, inviting them all in. When she spotted Valkyrie and Liv, she gave them a broad smile.  
“You must be Miss Cain and Miss Estrange,” she said, shaking their hands. “My name is Anastasia Ragnhailt, but please just call me Ana.”  
They introduced themselves as they shuffled into the warmth of the house, Valkyrie instantly noticing that Savage kept his tailor’s equipment everywhere, spotting fabric scissors in the corner and rolls of silk propped up in the corner. She also noted that there was a punching bag set up in one of the rooms, probably for Ana and Ghastly to practice with.  
The living room was very similar to the one in the O’Connell’s household. It had several comfortable chairs and sofas, a large grandfather clock stood in the corner and there was a fireplace in the center of the back wall.  
Ghastly, Dexter, Saracen and Hopeless had been lounging on the seats when they all moved into the living.  
“Hello all!” Dexter said, smiling as Joy leapt across the room towards the four boys.  
“Dexy!” she yelled, leaping at the tall, blond boy, who pulled the two year old into a hug.  
“Hello lovely! How are you?”  
“Happy! I go hug Ghastly and Saracen now.” She wriggled out of his arms, quickly hugging each boy until she arrived at Hopeless. “Are you Hopeless?” she asked, giving him an intrigued look.  
“Yes, and you are Joy, Skulduggery’s sister, right?”  
“Yes, I can make fire, but Vallie says you can shapeshift. Can you show me?”  
“Joy!” Aura told the child, diverting from her conversation with Ana. “Ask nicely.”  
“Alright, mama. May you show me, please?”  
“Later, okay? Or don’t you want presents?”  
“Oh! Presents!”


	34. In Which The Celebrations Begin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to say sorry for taking forever...

It was clear that Joy could barely contain her excitement as they all settled down, the presents laid in the middle of the floor.  
“Joy, you know your job,” Aura prompted the small girl.  
She gave a little squeal as she grabbed the nearest present, turning the label over to read it. “This is for Dexter!” she said, waddling over to the light haired boy, who accepted the present gracefully.  
“Now, who is it from?” Dexter wondered out loud, looking at the name printed on the neat packaging. “Anton! Alright!” The blond gave Anton a cheerful smile, before tearing the wrapping open.  
The expression of delight turned to one of bemusement.  
“What is it?” Valkyrie asked, as they all crowded round to see.  
“Umm, lavender oils?”  
Everyone turned to Anton, who stared back at them deadpanned. “He does stink sometimes.”  
“So do you,” Dexter shot back, but he was smiling. “Thanks anyways, Mr Grumpy.”  
All of Anton’s presents were hilarious. Nobody could prevent the huge grins spreading across their faces whenever Joy announced a present from Anton.  
Surprisingly, his present to Valkyrie was fairly sweet; a little snow globe of London (old London town) that painfully reminded her again of Tanith, but at the same time brought back fond memories of the time when the English wall walker took her on a weekend to London and went shopping. “Thanks Anton,” Valkyrie said, placing it carefully onto the side table, trying not to let people see the tears beginning to well in her eyes. She shuffled a little closer to Skulduggery on the sofa, hiding her face slightly in his shoulder. Skulduggery wrapped his arm around her, shifting slightly to sit them both more comfortably together.  
The next round of presents were from Saracen. All of his were some sort of jewellery; rings, necklaces, bracelets, anything that he thought suited them. Valkyrie got a simple wrap around bracelet made from silver with small rubies and jade interspersed along the length of the thin silver chain. It had clearly been thought about and Valkyrie was touched by how Saracen had paid attention to the colours she liked and suited her.  
Dexter had gone with shoes. “I really like shoes,” was his explanation. “It’s also something that Ghastly and Savage haven’t learnt to make yet.”  
“We’re tailors. Not cobblers,” Ghastly reminded them.  
“Fair enough.”  
Joy got the most adorable pair of snow boots, a shade of brown leather that looked almost red, lined with black fur. She squealed, pulling them on immediately and charging about the living room in them.  
“I love them so much!” she shrieked.  
Aura chuckled. “I can see that sweetie. But other people are still waiting for their presents. What do you say to Dexter?”  
“Thank you, Dexy!” she said, flinging her arms around the blond boy before returning to the present pile to dish out the last couple of Dexter’s presents.  
Valkyrie also got a pair of boots. They were pitch black leather, came up to the middle of her calf, but the leather wasn’t stiff to the point she couldn’t move her leg to swing a kick at someone.  
“Thanks, Dex! They’re perfect.”  
“That’s okay, Val.”  
Ghastly predictably had made them all clothes.  
“Father helped,” he said as everyone clamoured over their new outfits. “He did quite a lot of them.”  
Savage, who was sitting on the other side of the living room, chatting with the other adults, frowned at his son. “But Ghastly, all of the personal additions to the clothes were your ideas, and you did a lot of the designs.”  
“Thanks, Dad.” The scarred boy flushed with pride.  
Val admired her outfit. It consisted of a long black tunic that almost looked like a dress, but had the flexibility to fight in. It came with a pair of burgundy leggings that could hide underneath the tunic (well, dress). There was also a black cloak that comfortably fitted over her upper body, but didn’t flail everywhere as she moved; it was secured around the waist with a simple burgundy leather belt, to match the leggings.  
“It means you can fight in comfort and also look inconspicuous to the mortals,” Ghastly explained. “You otherwise end up getting loads of questions raised as to why you, as a woman, are parading round in trousers and that is not the kind of attention you want.”  
“You are amazing, both of you!” She was internally screaming at the new outfit, desperate to try it on immediately. “Thank you so much!”

Skulduggery gave his girlfriend a look. There was the broadest smile on her face; he had never seen her look so happy.  
Having fun?” he asked as Joy started dishing out Erskine’s presents.  
She glanced up at him. “It’s nice feeling part of a family, that’s all,” she said, a sad look appearing on her face.  
He gave her a confused look, but didn’t say anything more. He wasn’t in the mood to bring back unwanted memories of her life in the future, and was relieved when she perked up again as Joy gave her Erskine’s present.  
He watched as she unwrapped the plain wrapping of her gift. He was surprised to find that Ravel’s present to the dark haired girl was an ivory hairbrush and mirror set; usually the golden eyed boy was not aware enough to buy a nice present, let alone one that would be useful and yet he had managed to do both. “Thanks,” he heard her mumble.  
Erskine smiled. “Glad you like it!”  
Skulduggery narrowed his eyes slightly, not enough for anyone to really notice, wary of his sudden change, but let it go.

Hopeless hadn’t really done any Mid-Winter gift shopping; not that they had expected him to considering he had only just met them all and had no idea if he had any money or possessions to his name. He gave them all a small smile, quietly apologizing.  
“Don’t worry about it,” Dexter said, giving the oldest boy a broad smile, his eyes twinkling slightly.  
Val raised an eyebrow. Dexter never talked and smiled in such a way to anyone except maybe Saracen. Glancing over at Saracen, who was sitting on the floor amusing Joy by crumpling the wrapping paper that was scattered over the floor as she giggled uncontrollably. He seemed oblivious to the odd looks Dexter kept giving Hopeless.  
She decided against bringing it up; she wasn’t in the mood to create an argument on a day for family and friends.  
Skulduggery’s present had honestly been her favourite; a framed picture of the seven of them, Joy and Hopeless as well. The others had got similar pictures, each one showing them all at different angles in different positions.  
“Do you like it?” He looked genuinely a little worried, his eyes looking into hers, nervous and a little abashed.  
She positively beamed up at him, eyes sparkling. “It’s perfect! Thank you!”  
The present was so personal that Valkyrie was now beginning to have second thoughts about her own presents. They weren’t anything that special and as Ghastly handed out her presents to everyone (Joy was too preoccupied with the wrapping paper and Saracen) she felt like apologizing to everyone about her gifts.  
She had got Saracen, Dexter and Erskine a pair of knives each: Saracen had silver and blue quartz embellishment on his; she had given Dexter gold and rose quartz ones and for Erskine she had gone with the silver and black onyx ones.  
They gaped at their gifts. “My God, Val how much did you spend on these?” Saracen blurted out.  
“How did you even find them?” Dexter breathed, testing the blades of each of his.  
Val blushed. “The market had them at an alright price. The man at the stall didn’t think that the gemstones were particularly precious and they were pretty used to begin with, so no-one really wanted them. I got them cleaned up so they looked nice.”  
For Ghastly, she had got a pair of light twin swords and like the daggers, they had gold embellishments and red garnets. “Was this from the same stall, Val?”  
She nodded. “You like?”  
Ghastly gave her a broad smile. “It’s awesome.”  
For Anton, Valkyrie had finally settled on the broad sword. It wasn’t as embellished, but it was sturdy and sharp and was prettier than most swords she had seen. He gave her a small smile, which Valkyrie shakily returned. So far the presents had been well received, thankfully.  
She hadn’t really known what to get for Hopeless, mostly because she really didn’t know him very well. She had eventually picked up a set of throwing knives, figuring that because his discipline was a stealth one, he probably wasn’t one for bulky weapons. He seemed pleased with them.  
She ended up getting throwing knives for Liv as well, who leapt over to hug the dark haired girl tightly. Liv had given her a set of charcoals, knowing that Val had been borrowing Skulduggery’s. She had bought another set of charcoals for Skul as well to replenish the ones that Val had used up.  
Joy had been easy; she was still fairly little and was likely to love anything she got the small girl. Valkyrie giggled as she peered into the bag and positively screamed at the sight of the carved wooden animals she had commissioned the wood carver to make. “Thank you, Vallie!” she cried, jumping over Skulduggery’s leg to hug her.  
“Your welcome, sweetie.”  
Finally, Skulduggery opened up his gift. Valkyrie had struggled to picture him with anything but a revolver. She had managed to find a set of three handguns, not particularly efficient ones, but it wasn’t as if the weapons she had got everyone were going to be their main fighting weapons, considering they were all proficient in their disciplines.  
Val could practically see Skulduggery’s green eyes widen in surprise. “Oh my God, Valkyrie. They are great!”  
“Really?” Valkyrie slumped in relief.  
He hugged her tighter. “Thank you.”


	35. In Which A Key Decision Is Made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter has some sexual interactions towards the end, but not enough to shift the rating up. Basically, small amounts of smut which cuts off quickly

Valkyrie sat up on the morning of the last day of the year.

_Skulduggery’s birthday._

She looked blankly at the empty space in the bed next to her before rubbing her eyes and flopping back onto the warm bed sheets.

Whilst she was pretty certain young Skulduggery (as she still called him in her head) liked her, and she him, their relationship was a little confusing. They slept in the same bed, held hands and they would kiss sometimes, but Val realised that they hadn’t moved from that yet and they were still quite distant most of the time, almost as if they didn’t know how to break past the somewhat awkward barrier Valkyrie had unwittingly put between them; that she was from the future.

In her head, she was certain that Skulduggery’s wife would make an appearance at some point and she would be forgotten completely. It prevented her from wanting to make any advances in their relationship together with the fear that it would amount to nothing.

Not that Liv had warned her about making relationships with the Dead Men; Val figured that Liv would have told her by now if she wasn’t supposed to be investing in a relationship with a younger (and very much alive) Skulduggery. But there was still this instinctive reaction to distance herself from getting too close to the teenagers that she was struggling to get over.

Sighing, she slipped out of the warmth of the bed, dragging the nightgown over her head and moving to the wardrobe to grab the most warm and comfortable dress she could find. She certainly didn’t enjoy the impractical dresses, but she had got used to them over the course of the last couple of months. She was just happy that the school didn’t have dresses as part of the girl’s uniform. Eventually, she settled on a deep crimson, but fairly simplistic in style dress.

Pulling her hair up into a simple pony-tail, Val slipped her boots on and made her way downstairs. The wooden staircases creaked, something that would generally creep her out in the middle of the night, but with the gentle sound of muffled voices it sounded almost soothing.

Skulduggery was already up, sitting at the main table next to Joy, who was refusing to eat her egg that she had been given for breakfast. Liv and Anton were quietly conversing with Aura and Roshan in the living room, seemingly occupied. Val arched an eyebrow; usually on her birthday, her parents would make it a nice day and go out of their way to make her happy, and yet Skulduggery was the one sitting with his little sister, practically force-feeding the small girl.

She went to sit down on Joy’s other side. “Happy Birthday, Skul. Do you want me to feed her?”

The golden haired boy did a double take. “You actually celebrate Birth Days?

“Uh, yes? Don’t you?”

He sat back in his chair. “Well, we remember it as a family just for administrative purposes, but it is nothing special really.”

“But, it is! My parents, family and friends would get me presents and I’d get a day off from doing much work, and my mum would make a cake and-” She realised that she was waffling and fell silent.

“We’ve never done that.”

Joy gave the table a vicious kick. “Skuldug’ry, I hate egg!”

“Behave!” he barked. “You know you aren’t leaving the table until it’s finished.” He was clearly getting frustrated with the girl and Val felt the need to intervene.

“Skul, let me feed her. Take a break.”

He gave a sigh, slumping in his chair. “You won’t let her leave without finishing, right?”

“I won’t”

“Alright.” He stood up, and made his way to the stairs.

Valkyrie turned her focus towards Joy. “Now, little madam, you have something you need to eat.”

* * *

 

Skulduggery was idly sketching at his desk when Valkyrie entered the room, hours later.

“There’s food downstairs if you want some. We’ve all eaten.” He watched as she moved to sit on the bed. “I said that you weren’t really up to doing much today, so you won’t be disturbed I don’t think unless it’s urgent.”

“Thank you.” He went back to his drawing, only just realising that he had repeatedly drawn Valkyrie all over the page. As the blood rushed to his face, he flipped the page over, grabbing another to work on before she noticed. “You got Joy to eat her breakfast?”

“I convinced her that egg is the most delicious thing ever because it’s my favourite food.”

“Is it?”

Valkyrie scoffed. “God, no! But eating a little bit of egg was worth it considering my bum was going numb.”

Skulduggery laughed. “The pain you must have endured!”

“Absolute torture! You now owe me a life debt, seeing as I rescued you from that pain.”

“You tortured yourself! I owe you nothing, but my gratitude.”

Valkyrie pulled a face of mock surprise. “I saved you from certain doom of numb bum, and how did you repay me?”

“Oh, you wanted payment?” Skulduggery raised an eyebrow, not certain as to how this was going to pan out. Was she interested in him in the way he was interested in her? Had she realised how much he was holding back?

“Of course.” Her eyes remained steadily on him as he stood up and moved to the bed, sitting himself gently on the other side. The atmosphere of the room suddenly felt incredibly tense as they kept their gazes fixed on the other.

“What sort of compensation would you require, my saviour?”

Their witty banter withered away as she shifted herself on the bed, the crimson of her dress highlighting the red tinge to her soft lips and dark hair. His heart almost stopped when she pulled herself over towards him, leaning so that her cheek brushed his, her mouth almost brushing the join between his neck and shoulders. “I would have thought you knew what I wanted by now, Lorcan,” she whispered, making him shudder.

There was something so satisfyingly personal about the way she said his given name. “You weren’t exactly overt in communicating what you wanted, Stephanie.”

“Should I be?”

The feeling of her lips ghosting along his neck was unbearable. “Gods, yes,” he breathed.

Her mouth pressed into nook under his chin as he tilted his head back, closing his eyes in bliss as she gently nipped his neck, moving downwards towards his torso. He gave a low moan as she swiftly undid the buttons of his top, letting her hands roam over the expanse of his chest. He pulled her closer, letting her practically sit in his lap.

“Did you lock the door,” he gasped as she gave his ear lobe a nibble.

“Mhm.”

“Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I don't know what my next chapter should be about. Can you comment your choice number out of:  
> 1\. Jumping ahead to when the teens go back to school.  
> 2\. Developing more of China's plot.  
> 3\. Explaining what happens after Skulduggery and Valkyrie's smexy fun times.
> 
> K, Thanks!!


	36. In Which Cuddles Occupy Our Time

Skulduggery woke up suddenly, an odd feeling in his mouth. It took him a moment to realise that he had buried his face in a mass of dark hair and somehow managed to get some in his mouth. He sat up, pulling the strands of hair out of his mouth, cringing at the peculiar sensation, spluttering somewhat.

"What?" came a soft mumble and Skul felt Valkyrie shift to face him.

He gave her a gentle smile. "Your hair was in my mouth."

"Ew," but she didn't sound too fussed. "That happens to me whenever I sleep. I move around too much in bed. Sorry about that."

"It was just a bit weird, that's all. My hair's not long enough to do that."

Valkyrie sat up drowsily, rubbing the sleep from her eyes before looking down at the bare-chested blond.

"Have a good birthday?" she smirked as she noticed the wide-eyed boy giving her scantily clothed body a once over.

"Pretty good," he replied, smooth as ever. Then, "What time is it?"

She shrugged, slipping off the bed, wrapping a few of the sheets around herself before shuffling to the curtained window. Peeking around, she was surprised to see that it was only just beginning to get dark, thinking she had slept until New Year's Day. "It's early evening, still the 31st."

Skulduggery frowned. "Seriously? I thought we slept for longer than that."

"Apparently not." Valkyrie turned to give him a broad smile. "It's not even snowing."

"Still quite cold," he grumbled, pulling the thin sheets Val had left behind on the bed in an attempt for some kind of warmth.

"Put some clothes on then," she muttered, picking up the crimson dress that she had been wearing earlier from the floor where it had been carelessly abandoned. She shook it out and lay it over a chair carefully. "Need a quick wash?" she asked, picking up the jug of water that stood on the vanity and moving it to place it near the fire to warm.

He nodded, looking a little awkward in amongst the blankets of the bed that barely covered his lower body. When he looked up nervously, Valkyrie gave him a small smile and he appeared to relax somewhat, smiling back.

"Was it okay?" he asked tentatively as she moved to pull on the crimson dress again. She paused, arms askew inside the multiple layers of cloth, head only just poking over the neckline.

She wasn't exactly sure how to answer. Sure, it had been nice, not that she had anything to compare it to, but from what it sounded like, neither did Skulduggery.

"Can you help me?" she opted to say, flailing, entangled in the dress, hoping he would get what she was asking. She hadn't seen his reaction to her blatant blanking of the question he had just asked, but he didn't comment on it. She heard the bed creak as he got up and the pad of bare feet walking over, followed by a gentle tug on the dress. It fell down over her shoulders loosely, the laces hanging open at the back. There was a pause, and then she felt his lips brushing lightly down the back of her neck. She gasped softly.

"Was it okay?" he murmured again, placing a smattering of kisses along her shoulder blades.

She nodded, unable to speak.

It was only when it seem like the dress was just going to come off again did she gently lead him away from her again.

"Lace me up again. We can do this at some other point. Your parents are going to be wondering what we were up to."

"You mean there will be another time?"

"Sure."

* * *

It was difficult take his mind off the fact that Valkyrie, who was sitting on the floor playing with Joy, never betraying a hint as to what they had been doing not a few hours previously to the people around them, had agreed that _it_ would happen again sometime soon.

This evening?

Tomorrow morning?

In a week?

_In a month?_

It was all he could do not to scream in anticipation.


	37. In Which We Return To Ende

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, these last two chapters are a bit short, but I am a bit stretched for time here. IB is proving to be hell and I don't have much of a life at the moment.  
> I hope you enjoy the chapters, despite the brevity. This chapter is dedicated to RedIvySparrow (over on fanfiction.net) because she has been a babe. Thank you, hun. xx

It was odd getting back into the swing of school, knowing that China Sorrows was a spy for Mevolent.

All of them had done their best to avoid her, knowing that associating with her could lead to them becoming suspected spies, but also not wanting to reveal to her that she was now being watched by the Irish Sanctuary in order to get more leads. Valkyrie certainly didn't want to compromise any official investigations into Sorrows and her family, so she kept herself to herself and they all did their best to be non-confrontational, only being in the girl's presence if they absolutely had to.

They had been back at the Academy for nearly two weeks. Not much had changed, apart from the very obvious fact that Livena and Anton were now an item, Dexter and Saracen were most certainly getting it on, even though they still hadn't officially announced anything...

"They sort of have on and off moments," Skulduggery explained. "Sometimes, you think they might as well be an old married couple. Other times, it is as if they don't even know each other. It make for some wobbly group dynamics sometimes. I always prefer it when they get on."

Her and Skulduggery?

Oh, they were most _definitely_ an item.

They were inseparable. The awkwardness Val had experienced to begin with (what with Skulduggery being almost _the Skulduggery_ , but not quite) had all but dissipated. Maybe it was because she was getting used to the fact that this was her life now, no longer expecting when she got up in the morning to be out on another case with her _dead_ partner. Maybe it was because with each day that passed, she missed the modern day conveniences less and less. In fact, most days she didn't even think about the time that she had come from.

What was certainly nice was waking up most mornings with Skulduggery's arms draped loosely around her waist, the warmth of his body a comforting presence. It was certainly warmer sharing a bed in the middle of winter.

* * *

Valkyrie was still no closer to knowing why she was stuck in this century, but as time wore on, the question moved further back in her mind and she focused on simply enjoying the moment. After all, it wasn't every day that a girl from the 21st Century got a chance to live in history and Valkyrie had the mind set of turning everything into an adventure. She wouldn't have met Skulduggery if she didn't have that mental attitude.

She took the day's as they came. The lessons were fun, the teachers adored her, particularly the Physical Combat teacher, Mr Callen, and Mrs Crow from Magical Combat. She sparred with Skulduggery most days, ate with the gang, spent her evenings chatting to the girls. She had barely seen September, Elena and Elysia over the Winter break and she missed the three crazy girls more than anything. She and Liv spent most of the evenings catching up with them, having spent a lot of time with the boys during the break.

Not that the boys didn't join in the conversations. Sometimes they hung around, other times they went off and did their thing. Valkyrie didn't mind either way. Whilst she did love each and every one of them (yes, even Erskine), she never felt obligated to spend all of her time with them. They were comfortable how they were, they saw plenty of each other and they were all happy.

* * *

China knew she was being watched.

The teachers were all more wary of her and she had found multiple charms in her school bedroom. It hadn't taken her long to disable them, her proficiency in symbol magic coming in handy, but she was now having to clear her room of charms most evenings. She figured someone was coming in whilst she was at lessons and resetting them, but it was beginning to get worrying. She also noted that her roommate had been moved and not replaced by anyone.

She hadn't been in contact with her family since the meeting with Mevolent, fearing that she would lead the Sanctuary straight to his hideout. There was no knowing what would happen to her if word got out that she had betrayed _him._

The meeting itself had been terrifying. Mevolent was unlike any other person she had ever seen. She was glad that she was on his side. There was no way that the Sanctuary would be able to defeat him and she personally valued her life.

The question was, could she convince everyone else that he was unbeatable?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this fic. It is obviously very unfinished, but it is one of my first ever fanfictions and it got really popular really quickly, particularly on fanfiction.net. I am hoping to edit and rework this story during Summer 2017 because I am aware that I need to conclude the story, but it needs some help. This has been a work in progress since 2014, when I first started publishing stories online, and I want to see it through to the end.
> 
> At the moment, I don't have the time, but I will start working on it during the Summer after my exams (which finish 17th May). I will be on holiday in Europe for a month after that with friends and family, but I will definitely be starting to work on all my fanfics during the end of May onwards.
> 
> I look forward to the summer!
> 
> ~Leo


End file.
